Using a Database This is Tom. Tom is very frustrated. He has a paper due next week and he can't find the scholarly journal article he needs to finish it. He is going to spend his Spring Break looking for that article. He has looked everywhere. He searched on the Internet. Google gave him a gazillion pages. Some of them were for scholarly articles but he had to pay for them. Tom is a poor college student. He has to save his money for important things like food, books, food, cell phone calls, food, transportation, and food. What can he do? Who can help him?

Using a Database This is Linda and Sue. They are in Tom's class. They are very happy. They are going to the beach for Spring Break. They also have papers due but they finished theirs. They found the scholarly articles they needed for FREE! How did they do it? They also used the Internet but they did the tutorial and learned how to use a database and Boolean operators to find articles. What is a database and Booly thingys, you ask? Do the tutorial to find out and you too will be able to spend your Spring Break at the beach and not like Tom.

Library Website To start searching for articles, go the library website. Click on the "Search for Articles" link. This will take you to the database page where you can find the articles you need for your paper.

Database Page At the database page, look for Academic Search Premier. This database contains thousands of citations for articles in magazines, scholarly journals, and newspapers. Many of these articles are full text which will save you time.

Academic Search Premier This is what the search page in Academic Search Premier looks like. To find articles, type your search term in the box next to the word "Find“ (1), then click search. This page will also let you limit your search so you can get the types of articles you're looking for. If you want an article that has the complete text, click in the box next to the words "Full Text“ (2). If you are only looking for articles from scholarly journals, click in the box next to the words "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals“ (3).

Finding Information Old people should or should not be allowed to choose to end their lives. For example, let's say you're searching for articles on this topic. It's a good idea to write down your topic sentence then highlight the main words, also known as keywords.

Keywords Once you have the words highlighted, think of related words for the highlighted words and list those. Old peopleelderly, aged End liveseuthanasia, assisted suicide, right to die

Searching To search, choose one of the words that you think will give you articles on your topic. For this topic, I'm going to type euthanasia in the search box and click on Search. You can see that over 3,000 articles were found. This is too many so you need to refine your search.

Boolean Operators To refine your search you need to use specific words to combine with your keywords. Click on the picture and look at this neat website. It explains what those specific words are and what they do.

Using AND Because we got over 100 articles when searching for euthanasia, I'm going to type the word AND and the keyword elderly in the Find box to limit the articles to those two keywords. When I did this, you can see that less than 100 articles were found. This makes it easier to find articles on the topic. Notice that you can click on links to further narrow your search.

Limiting to Academic Journals Another way to refine your search is to click on the link for Academic Journals. You will get only the articles that are in academic journals, also known as scholarly journals. These journals publish the research that was done on the topic. Academic journals also publish editorials and literature reviews so if you want an article that shows the research, check to see if it discusses methods, population, and results of research. You can find this out by skimming the articles and looking at the headings.

Limiting to Magazines If you refine your search by clicking on Magazines, you will get only the articles that were published in magazines like Time or Newsweek. These articles will inform readers about research that has been done but they do not tell you where they got their information and they do not have references. These articles are good places to go for opinions and general information about topics.

Using OR There may be times when you don't find enough information. This search for Awe Indians found no articles.

Using OR To refine this search you would use the word OR and combine it with another name. When Awe was combined with Xavante, there were more articles found.

Using NOT It may be that you’re able to find information but you’re getting a lot of articles that are not exactly about your topic. If you were searching for information about Ernest Hemingway, you would get over a thousand articles.

Using NOT You find a lot of articles on reviews about Ernest Hemingway and that is not what you’re looking for. Typing in the word NOT along with reviews will take out all the articles, over 600, that are reviews. This will help you be more specific on the information you’re looking for in the database.

Your Turn Public libraries should or should not use Internet filters on all their public computers. Now it's your turn to find articles. Click here to go to the Library’s website, using this topic statement and what you've learned, print out one article from an academic journal and one from a magazine. Use the worksheet to check and see if the information you find will work for writing a research paper. Turn in the articles you find to your instructor.Click here to go to the Library’s website