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This tutorial will show you how to search for articles using the University of Tennessee Libraries.
You are probably already familiar with Google. Google is a free search engine that helps
you locate websites. Libraries subscribe to many other search engines as well. The Books
Plus Search from the library's home page at lib.utk.edu helps locate books that you
can borrow from the library. The databases link from the library's home page includes
digital collections that can help you find articles on a topic.
Most databases focus on one subject area, such as psychology or engineering.
Keep in mind that these search engines are not mutually exclusive. For example, Google
search results sometimes include books or articles, and database search results sometimes
include book chapters or statistics and reports. But, in general, different search engines
specialize in one format of information. So, we'll use the databases to look for articles.
Before we start searching the databases, let's look at the best way to search them.
Let's pretend you have a paper to write about how athletes who use steroids are affected
by these chemicals. Google searches are very forgiving. You can type in an entire research
question, with spelling typos and all, and find results. Library search engines have
more rules to follow. One is to use keywords only. Keywords are the words that are completely
necessary in answering a question. In this case, the words athletes and steroids are the most important
words in the statement.
Now we have to join the different keywords together. Library databases prefer that you
use "and" in between keywords. So, search a library database like this: athletes and
steroids. It's also a good idea to try more than one search in a database. Think of synonyms
and create a new search. In this case, we could use sports instead of athletes, and
doping instead of steroids.
Now that we have our search, let's go to the library homepage and find the article
search engines, which librarians call databases. You might wonder which database to use. The
choice of database really depends on your research topic. We're going to look in three
general topic databases: Academic Search Premier, JSTOR and CQ Researcher. Let's start with
Academic Search Premier.
Our search brings up 1,440 articles related to athletes and steroids. Here's one quick
hint: Sorting the results by relevance will bring the most relevant articles to the top.
When there's a link to a PDF or HTML document, click on that link to read the entire article.
But, when there isn't a link to the PDF or HTML, click to look for the entire text
or "full text," and then click on the orange GO button. If you have trouble accessing
the article, just ask a librarian. You'll see how to do that in just a minute.
Let's try another search using synonyms. Sports and doping brings up even more results
than our first search, and the top ten results are different than what our first search returned.
Since library search engines only return results that EXACTLY match what you type into the
search box, you should always try more than one search in order to find the most relevant articles.
Another general topic database is called JSTOR. Searching JSTOR works very similarly to searching
Academic Search Premier. Again, use keywords with "and" between the keywords, and try
more than one search. In JSTOR, just click on the PDF to read the entire full text of
an article.
CQ Researcher is another useful database. You can search this database the same way,
using keywords, or try looking up a topic based on categories. CQ researcher gives you
reports with survey data, a pro/con debate and a bibliography with further readings.
So, here's a quick review. When you're looking for articles, use library search engines
called databases. Use keywords, put "and" between the keywords, and use synonyms to
find the most relevant results.
If you're having trouble identifying good keywords for your topic, or if you aren't
sure which article search engine or database to use, just ask a librarian. You can contact
a librarian from the library's homepage. We're here to help. Thanks for watching!