Bully's Basics

The library subscribes to over 200 different online databases to provide access to articles for your research, on topics from archaeology to zoology. A good starting place is Academic Search Complete (a broad, general, multi-disciplinary database), or you can try EBSCO Discovery to search across multiple databases and disciplines.

• On the search results page, you can limit results to articles from magazines or peer-reviewed journals.

• No PDF or HTML link to the full text? Click the Find It button under the article title to check for alternate access, or to request a copy via Interlibrary Loan.

Searching Databases

• AND    : narrows the search by finding records with both terms
• OR      : broadens the search by finding records with either term
• NOT    : narrows the search by finding records with 1st term but not 2nd

Truncation

• Use the asterisk (*) to stand in for all word endings
  • e.g. forest*  for forest, forests, forestry, forester, etc.

Searching by Phrase

• Place an exact phrase in quotes

Subject Terms

• Special indexing terms that may differ from one database to another
• Found in each record and also on the left by clicking on  “Subjects”
• Once subject terms for a database have been identified, can change search fields from “Select a Field” to “SU Subjects” (exact wording can vary by database)

Limit by Year

• Can be done on the initial search screen or (in EBSCO databases) by using the slider on the right in the results

Sort by Relevance

• The database will re-sort the results list and try to bring the most relevant articles to the top of the list.