Why use a database?
Many researchers rely heavily on Google Scholar to find articles. They will then search for the references found in those articles, and the "cited by" links, to expand their search. Sometimes this works really well, other times, less so. (The "less so" is what keeps librarians nice and busy!)
Google and Google Scholar are powered by proprietary algorithms. Because the systems are proprietary, it's difficult to know if we are getting a complete picture of what has been published on a given topic.
Library databases match your keywords to words in the title, subject headings, and abstracts (summaries) of the articles in the journals indexed by the database. Some databases also look for your keywords in the full text of the article. You will find things you didn't find in Google Scholar, and sometimes you will find things in Google Scholar that you didn't find in a database.
The takeaway? Don't limit yourself to one tool!
Crafting the keyword search
Search tips:
- Start broad, connecting just a few keywords or phrases with AND, e.g. africa AND carbon
- Place quotation marks around phrases, e.g. "clean energy"
- If you receive a large number of results, add keywords to narrow your search, e.g. "clean energy" and India
- Broaden your search with alternative terms, in parentheses using OR (green OR sustainable)
- Use an asterisk on word stems to find variant ending