Beginning the Search
Unlike Google or other internet search engines, library databases work best when you enter keywords or "search strings" rather than phrases or sentences.
Keywords represent the main ideas and concepts in your research topic. Since each database can categorize the main concepts of your research under a different subject heading, it is important to brainstorm different words authors may use for your topic so that you have alternate search options if you have difficulty finding resources.
There are a few types of keywords that you can work with, depending on your topic.
Having a range of keywords can help you find many different types of information.
How do I use keywords?
You can put keywords together to search for information in library databases.
This short video shows how to search within Academic Search Complete, one of the library's databases. There are many different types of databases, but this will give you a general idea of what searching and filtering can look like when you are completing research in the databases
Once you have found an article you want to use in the database, you can see if the full text is available. If it is, then you can download, print, save, email, cite, or link to the article.
