Global Arts Studies Program 131 (Kaminsky): Tips for Searching Databases

Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase

• "indie rock"
• "rock 'n' roll"
• "techno music"

Truncation

Use a symbol (* is the most common) to look for variant endings of a word

• teen* will find teen, teens, teenager, etc.
• music* will find music, musical, musicality, musician, etc.
  
• politic* will find politics, political, politically,  etc.

You may find the citation for an article that you want to look at in the bibliography of another article. Use the citation information to get to the full text of the article. You can:

Search in Melvyl by entering the article title.

Search in Google Scholar, by entering the article title.

Search e-Journals tab (in the QuickSearch box on the library home page) by entering the journal title.

Sample Citation:

Gilroy, Paul. "Could You Be Loved? Bob Marley, anti-politics and universal sufferation." Critical Quarterly 47, no. 1/2 (Summer 2005): 226-245. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 12, 2013).

Boolean operators are words you can use between your search terms to either broaden or limit your search.

Use OR to broaden your search. For example, if you search advertising OR commercials, you will find articles that include both terms.

In contrast, use AND and NOT to narrow your search. For example, if you search advertising AND commercials, you will only find articles that include both terms.

And, if you search advertising NOT commercials, you will find articles that include the word advertising except for those that also include the term commercials. In Google, use a minus sign instead of NOT (e.g. advertising -commercials).