Finding Articles
Search Strategies
- Look at your question(s) - what are the keywords you will use to search?
- Now that you have your keywords, write out some possible synonyms of each word or related concepts.
- Take notes of what you are using to search
- Keep track of what databases you have used
For example, if you are searching for information on the Great Depression, you might also want to look for:
- Dust Bowl
- Black Thursday
- Smoot-Hawley Tariff
- Economic Depression
Adjust your searches by narrowing the focus or by combining research terms.
Once you type in your search terms, use the "Refine my results" list on the left-hand side to help narrow down your search by:
- format
- subject
- publication date
- and more!
Boolean Operators
In many databases, you can use a wildcard character to retrieve results of all words that start with the letters before the wildcard. Often, this character is *.
So when searching for "pollinat*", you will get results for: pollination, pollinators, and pollinating.
AND / OR / NOT
Created by the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Access scholarly journal articles, books reviews, and dissertations in modern world history (1450 to present) excluding the U.S. and Canada. Covers sources published from 1955 to present.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowAccess a wide variety of journal articles in the humanities and other disciplines.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowIncludes the most recently published output of many major scholarly journals. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, cultural studies, education, political science, and more.
- Research Library (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowCovers publications from academic journals and popular magazines in the humanities, social sciences, general sciences, and business.
- Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance This link opens in a new window
Contains a bibliography composed of secondary source material pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance from 400 to 1700. Citations for books, journal material, dissertation abstracts and essays are included.
- Annee Philologique This link opens in a new windowContains citations for Greek and Roman studies focusing on the period from 2000 BC to 800 CE. Covers classical languages, literatures, history, philosophy, art, and more
- Africa-Wide Information This link opens in a new windowAccess multidisciplinary bibliographic databases from around the world. Produced by NCIS South Africa, materials focus on Africa and African studies.
- Al-Manhal This link opens in a new window
Al-Manhal provides 4 types of cross-searchable products (ebooks, Peer-reviewed Journals, Theses & Dissertations, and Middle East Strategic Online Reports) on the same platform, and the content is available in multiple languages including Arabic, English, French and some other languages.
- Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new windowContains bibliographic indexes pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide. Particular emphasis on the humanities and social sciences.