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Research Guides

Mechanical Engineering

Google Scholar Tips

Google Scholar is a freely available resource, but most publishers do not provide free access to the full text of their journals. The following steps can help you to find the full text articles to which the MSU Libraries subscribe:

  1. When off-campus, first log into the MSU Virtual Private Network before clicking on a database.
    This will give you the same access off-campus as on-campus and will help to ensure that you can access all of the journals that the library subscribes to.
     
  2. Use the link to Google Scholar that is on the library’s website.
     
  3. Click on the title of the article result in Google Scholar
    If the library has paid for the content, you may be able to access it directly. Also, the article may come up if the author has posted it to their website (especially for federal employees). Links to author-posted versions may also appear next to article title.
     
  4. Click on “Find It@MSState Libraries”
    This will pull up the “Find It” screen that you see when searching other databases, such as CAB Abstracts.
     
  5. Search the article title in the Discovery database and click on any full text link or the "Find It" button.

Research Databases

Listed below are databases that you may find useful for your research. For a complete listing of all of MSU Libraries' online databases, click here.
If the MSU Libraries does not provide access to a journal article or other item that you need, you may order it via Interlibrary Loan.

Looking for the full text ?

To find journal articles, you will primarily use the library's online databases. In the databases, you can conduct keyword, author, title, or subject searching.

  1. Always use the Find It  button for possible full text online. Examine any holdings statements to see if we have the volume and issue that the article appears in.
  2. If no full-text available online, then use the Find It button to connect to the library's online catalog to see if the library has the journal in print format, so you can locate the article in the library.
  3. If the library doesn't have the article online OR in print, use Interlibrary Loan to get it from another library.

When you just have a citation:

  1. Copy and paste the name of the article title into the library's Discovery database.
  2. Follow the steps above to determine if the library has the article you need.

Note:

Many authors, especially federal government employees, post versions of their articles online. So you may be able to find what you need through a Google or Google Scholar search.