Planning out your search strategy in advance will save you time finding relevant articles in the library databases. To search most effectively, break your research topic into it's main concepts. Exp
Do background research and brainstorming to discover other terms the literature may use for these concepts.
Example:
Concept | Brainstorming |
Academic Search Complete Thesaurus |
MeSH Headings |
ableism |
ableist OR discrimination OR prejudice OR bias OR marginalization | ableism OR "discrimination against people with disabilities" | "discrimination psychology"[MeSH Terms] |
public policy | government OR law OR legal | Law | "Public Policy"[MeSH Terms] |
people with mobility-related disabilities |
wheelchair OR crutches OR elderly OR Parkinson's | Movement disorders | "Mobility Limitation"[MeSH Terms] |
Library databases allow you to search across multiple magazines, newspapers, or journals at once. To choose the right databases to search, think about the type of information you want (scholarly journal articles or a newspaper article, for example) and who would be reading and writing about your topic.
TIP: Start your search with one multidisciplinary database and one subject specific database.
Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Has over 1.8 million individual records, some dating back to 1887, and includes abstracts from Psychological Abstracts back to 1927, Psychological Bulletin from 1921-1926, and all APA journals and the American Journal of Psychology back to their first issues. Corresponds in part to the print index Psychological Abstracts.
Set up LibKey Nomad to find access through the UT Libraries subscriptions and purchases.
Books: Selected titles from university presses and scholarly societies. All content from the print edition of the book is included in the digital edition. There are no DRM restrictions.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
To find databases for other fields that may speak to your research, check out the list of Databases by Subject.
Take some time to plan out your search strategy in advance. Remember these important search tips.
If your first search doesn't return the results you want, done give up. Edit your search strategy, add more synonyms, and try again.
Found a reference to an article or book you want to read? Now it's time to locate it.
Your instructor or subject librarian may throw around the term "library database" a lot, but what exactly do they mean? This video from RMIT University in Australia explains the term and how you can use databases for research.
Transcript available through YouTube.
If you don’t see a .pdf of the article you want, click FIND IT AT UT to find it in another database or in print in the Libraries.
If it is only in print in the Libraries or we don’t own the article, click GET A SCAN to have the article emailed to you. This option will take a few days.
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