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The databases to the right provide references to many scholarly journal articles and papers.

  1. Start off with keyword searches expressing your topic. Keyword searching crosses all fields.
  2. Use Search Operators such as "OR" and "AND" to expand or reduce your results.
  3. Review those items that look relevant, then, exploit the details within those entries to help lead you to other relevant articles.
    • Pay attention to the subject headings (often called "descriptors") to see how the database describes your topic and use them to find related articles.
    • Find other papers written by the same author; these will typically be on similar subjects.
    • Follow citation trails: other articles that have cited this article will probably be on a related subject and will include citations to other articles of interest.
  4. For more Secrets of Searching a Database, review that section in How to Research Like a Librarian.