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Keep your searches simple and only search the most important words. Avoid searching complex phrases or including connecting words in your searches. For example, search Social Media bullying instead of: Problems with social media and bullying.
Brainstorm different words to describe the same idea and try them all! Don't be afraid to try many variations of the same search.
The words AND, OR and NOT are special to databases. They aren't searched as keywords, but instead tell the database how to treat other words in your search query.
Using AND between two keywords requires results to have both terms. Using OR means a result only has to have one of the terms to be considered relevant. Using NOT excludes results with the specified keyword.
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Use the article databases to search for citations, abstracts, and full-text articles.
Click on the PDF or HTML link to gain access to the full text of an article. If these links aren't available, click "Check for Full Text" to see if we have access to the article through another database.
Check the journal finder to see whether or not we have access to a particular title.
If you cannot find the full text of an article through another database, you can request it via interlibrary loan.
General Databases include articles on a wide range of topics and subjects. If your topic belongs to more than one subject or you’re not having much luck with subject specific databases you may want to try a general article database.
Google Scholar is searching the open web, so be critical the sources!