Start With a Basic Search
- Enter a few keywords that represent your topic in the search box, and hit Search.
- Scroll through the first 1-2 pages of search results. Read article titles and hover over the magnifying glass icon to view abstracts. Look for articles that address each component of your topic.
Level Up Your Search
Use additional keywords and combine them with different search techniques to get better results.
- Select the Advanced Search option.
- Enter a few of your keywords in each of the search boxes, one set of related terms per row. Add rows if needed.
- Add OR in capital letters between each search term.
- OR is a Boolean operator that tells the search engine to find results that use any number of the keywords in that row. This will make your search broader and increase the number of results. It's useful when you're not sure which keyword would work best.
- Add quotation marks around exact phrases of 2 or more words.
- A phrase like "social media" means something specific when the words are together in that order. This tells the database to find that phrase instead of searching for social and media separately.
- Use an asterisk to truncate (shorten) words that have multiple possible endings.
- Searching psych* will bring back results with psychology, psychiatrist, psychological, psychologist, and more.
Adjust Your Results
- Experiment with the filters on the left side. Which ones are most relevant to your search? How do they change your results?
- Check the Peer Reviewed Articles box on the left side to eliminate newspapers, magazines, and other non-academic results.
- Look at the Subjects listed under each article result. Do they give you any new keyword ideas?
- To save the link to a search: Click Share at the top right of your search results, and copy and paste the permalink.
- To save the link to an article: Click Permalink on the right side of the article landing page, and copy the link.
