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Librarian assembled a quick start guide with resources on reading and searching for scholarly literature.
Search Tips:
When searching in a database, spelling matters!
Unlike search engines, a database will not correct your typos and spelling mistakes.
If you get zero results, first check that you spelled your keywords correctly.
Use quotation marks for phrase searching
If you are searching for multiple words or a phrase, like human computing, put those words within a set of quotation marks in the search box.
If you search human computing, instead of "human computing" most databases will search human and computing as separate keywords
Use truncation to search for various endings
aka “wildcards” - often a * at the end of a word (check the database)
Use in place of letters - comput* for computer, computing, computational
Other factors:
Plural and singular nouns usually do not matter.
Capitalization usually does not matter.
Spaces between letters or words might matter.
Especially in acronyms or the names of medication or viruses or molecules or organisms
Bowerbird vs “Bower Bird” both are valid terms and return results in databases
