Research Guides: How-To Guide for Research: Find Sources

Locate Articles

Keywords are words that can appear anywhere in an article including the title or the article text. You'll use keywords to search all of the library databases. Here are some tips for searching:

Identify a few keywords
- Databases can't understand full sentences the way Google can
Avoid slang
- When searching scholarly articles, slang will get fewer results
Use synonyms and different spellings
- Try searching for things like nineteen nineties AND 1990s to cover the different spellings authors may use
Use quotation marks
- Quotation marks tell the search to look for an exact phrase

Questions to keep in mind:

What problem am I solving?
What information do I need?
What do I already know?
What else do I need to learn?

General Search Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Has full-text articles and abstracts from thousands of scholarly/peer-reviewed journals in many areas of academic study. Available through EBSCOhost and provided by KYVL.
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center This link opens in a new window These resources are comprehensive, full-text databases providing differing points of view on current social issues, such as affirmative action, censorship, ecology, mental health, and many more.

Background Research

Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window Britannica Academic is a combination of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, thesaurus, magazines, periodicals, and many other research tools providing a variety of reliable sources students need for research. Access provided by KYVL.

CIA World Factbook

Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window Provides encyclopedic entries on a variety of national and international subjects. Access provided by KYVL.

Denzel Washington Venn Diagram Most databases use Boolean Operators to search. The Boolean Operators are used to connect words together and tell the database to return results that contain some, all, or none of those words. Here’s how the operators work:

AND tells the database to return only articles that contain all of your terms, such as computers AND communication AND 1990s. AND will narrow your search, or return fewer results.
OR tells the database to return articles that contain either of your terms, such as desktops OR "personal computers". OR will broaden your search, or return more results. OR is excellent for synonym or variations of a word (communicate OR communicator OR communication).
NOT tells the database to exclude articles that contain a certain term 1990s AND computers NOT email. That would get you results that focused on ways computers were used in the 1990s other than for email. NOT will narrow your search, or return fewer results.

Why do Boolean Operators matter? Well, many databases assume that if you enter a bunch of words in a row, then you want articles that contain all of those words together. So the search nineteen nineties computers communication would return only articles that have those four exact words right next to one another – probably not very many articles. This is called phrase searching.

One other tip about Boolean Operators? You MUST capitalize them – every letter. Or they won’t work!

How Boolean Operators Work (AND OR NOT)

If you are having trouble finding good sources despite trying a lot of different searches, consider these troubleshooting tips.

Too many results:

Narrow your search by adding more search terms
Use quotation marks to specify that words should be kept together as a phrase e.g. "global warming"
Limit your search by Subject term
Consider narrowing your research topic

If you are having trouble finding good sources despite trying a lot of different searches, consider these troubleshooting tips.

Too few results:

Use OR between synonyms and alternative search terms to expand the results
Repeat your search in multiple databases
Check for spelling mistakes
Consider broadening your research topic