Tips for Smarter Searching
1. Use longer, scholarly articles from academic journals as your primary sources, rather than shorter articles from newspapers and magazines
2. Use subject specific databases, like those below, when available rather than general databases like Academic Search Premier or ProQuest
Examples:
For business use Business Source Premier
For education use ERIC
For engineering use Engineering Village
For medicine use MEDLINE
For nursing use CINAHL Plus with Full Text
For psychology use PsycINFO
For sociology use Sociological Abstracts
For U.S. history use America: History & Life
For world history use Historical Abstracts
Pay attention to the difference between subject specific databases and publishers' portals -- like Cochrane Library, Emerald Fulltext, IEEE Xplore, JSTOR, PsycARTICLES, SAGE Journals Online, ScienceDirect, and Women & Social Movements -- that reprint only that specific publisher's articles.
3. Use subject searching rather than word searching whenever possible
Most subject searching is available in the databases' "advanced" search screens
4. Subject searching requires using the databases' subject headings
You cannot make up your own subject headings: subject searching, by definition, requires that you use the exact subject headings used by the particular database; you can find exact subject headings by doing a little preliminary searching since subject headings will be clearly identified
5. Different databases call subject headings by different names
Examples:
America: History & Life and Historical Abstracts call them "Subject Terms"
Business Source Premier calls them "SU Subject Terms"
CINAHL Plus with Full Text and MEDLINE call them "MH Exact Subject Heading"
Engineering Village calls them "Ei Controlled Term"
ERIC calls them "SU Descriptors"
PsycINFO calls them "Index Terms"
Sociological Abstracts calls them "Descriptors, DE="
WorldCat calls them "Subject"
6. Use the List of E-journals and 360Link to connect to the actual articles
360Link will appear in search results: if an article is not available in the database you're using, click on 360Link to check if it is available in another database
7. Use interlibrary loan to obtain material our library does not own
8. Use Google better
use quotation marks around words you want to keep together in a phrase, like "quantitative methods", but don't overuse quotes because they really restrict your search;
use the tilde character (~) before a word so Google searches for that word and its synonyms, like ~disabled;
restrict your searches to certain types of files by adding filetype:pdf or filetype:doc to your search;
restrict your searches to certain types of sites by adding site:.gov or site:.org to your search;
mix and match any of these techniques in a Google search;
use Google Scholar.
9. Ask for help
The reference desk is staffed by librarians just waiting for you to ask a question; you can call the reference desk at (315) 792-7251 during open hours
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