Guides: Basics of Library Research Workshop: Search Suggestions

Find Article Full Text

Follow the Find It link, Get It! link, or the SFX button in most databases to

● access full text online
● find print holdings of the journal
● request an article PDF via Document Delivery

Search Tips

5 tips for planning your search strategy:

Brainstorm important terms, concepts, synonyms, and jargon to use as search keywords to describe your topic.
Use only key topic terms for your search. Words that ineffectively limit your search: effect, cause, pros and cons, increase, decrease.
Personalize your results with advanced options or filters including peer-reviewed, full text online, recently published articles, or articles from a particular journal.
Use symbols to expand or limit your search results. Place an asterisk after the root of a search term. For example: teen* finds the words teen, teens, teenage, teenager, etc. Use quotation marks around words to search for an exact phrase, for example: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Databases index by subject terms, allowing users to view predefined words that are accepted by the database. This controlled vocabulary helps you find information even if you don’t know the proper search terms.

Suggested Resources—Sciences

The databases listed here cover subjects in the sciences: chemistry, natural history, biology, botany, engineering, and others.

ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Full-text database offers journal articles and book chapters from peer-reviewed sources in the sciences including life and health sciences.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Covers the world's leading literature in sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, from 1981 to the present.
IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to the worldwide technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.

Suggested Resources—Social Sciences

ABI/INFORM Global This link opens in a new window
Business, management, financial coverage of over 3,040 publications.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed for academic institutions, this database provides complete coverage of multidisciplinary academic journals.
Education Source This link opens in a new window
Education Source is the most authoritative resource for the study of education, covering over 1,700 journals, books, and over 4 million articles.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to the highest-quality academic journals, books, and primary sources in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
OmniFile Full Text Mega This link opens in a new window
Material for learning, detailed research, or casual reading in a single, easily searched database, and utilizes existing periodical holdings.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Psychology journal coverage from 1887 to the present, including more than 1,700 periodicals in 35 languages
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
The world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database.
SpringerLink Journals This link opens in a new window
Millions of scientific documents from scholarly and academic journals.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
The definitive scholarly business database, with coverage from 1886 to the present. Includes company information, company profiles, industry profiles, and market research reports.

Suggested Resources—Humanities

The databases listed here focus on subjects in the humanities: art, architecture, history, and more.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed for academic institutions, this database provides complete coverage of multidisciplinary academic journals.
America History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Bibliography of journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and book reviews on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Extensive indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies from the early 19th century to the present.
Art Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Index of nearly 600 art publications covering peer-reviewed journals, yearbooks, museum bulletins and reproductions of works of art from selected periodicals.
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Index of journal articles on architecture and design, including bibliographic descriptions on subjects such as the history and practice of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, interior design, and decoration.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including political, social, economic, military and women's history.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Contains current and archival issues of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other valuable materials.

Basics of Library Research Workshop

Subject Guide

Getting Started