Survey The Literature: Commonly Used Databases
- Web of ScienceChoosing "All Databases" allows you to search an index of journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
- ScopusScopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivers a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
- PubMedProvides access to over 22 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. Includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.
Survey The Literature: Other Sources
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Corporate documents
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Raw datasets (including spatial)
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University repositories (e.g. eCommons)
Boolean Operators
Your Toolbox
In your toolbox of resources, consider how broad versus how specific your searches are. Starting with Google or Google Scholar might be more broad than you need, when an article database might be more specific to your needs. On the other hand, you might want to start very broadly if this is your first time searching the topic. Whatever the case may be, consider that you narrow or broaden your search just by adjusting the place you start your search.
Identify Core Concepts and Keywords
It can be helpful to break down your research question into core concepts and keywords, tied together with Boolean Operators.
Develop A Search Strategy
Download a copy of this research log, or Google "research log" to find examples to customize.