Be persistent in your searching.
Try both keyword and subject searching
Narrow a search by using subject headings. Locate subject headings by looking at the descriptors associated with pertinent articles and books.
Try these tips to narrow your search.
Try synonyms (AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Can't think of any synonyms? Try an online thesaurus. Try these tips to expand your search
Try both singular and plural forms of words (use a "+" sign in SocSciAbs to search both singular and plurals e.g. religion+). Use an "*" in Academic Search Premier to get a variety of word endings.
If searching a compound word, try it as one word and as two words (e.g. rain forest or rainforest) to see which retrieves the most useful results.
If searching a term with an internal dash, search the term in each database with and without the internal dash (e.g. x-ray vs. x ray) to see which retrieves the most useful results.
A multi-disciplinary full-text database of over 10,000 academic journals, newspapers, magazines, reports, and books. Scholarly content covers a broad range of important areas of academic study including the humanities, sciences and social sciences, education, arts, literature, and more.
(replaces Academic Search Complete)
An interdisciplinary archive of journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, and mathematics. JSTOR also contains a large collection of scholarly ebooks from academic publishers.
The definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes indexing for over 1,800 journals from 1895 to the present, citations and links to books and media reviews, and coverage for some titles back to the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Primary index to materials for research in non-U.S./non-Canadian history, including social and cultural history, from the 15th century to the present. Includes hundreds of history journals and books and provides selective indexing of historical articles from thousands of journals in a wide variety of languages. Topics include world history, military history, women’s history, history of education and much more.