There are a couple different ways to find scholarly articles on the library website. The first is by using MILO, which will search all of our databases and resources at once. This will bring you a lot of results quickly, but you'll have to narrow down those results to get to what you're looking for. If you want to search through a smaller set of resources instead of everything at once, you can try one of the databases suggested below on the left. You won't get as many results as searching in MILO, but the results will probably be more relevant.
The video below demonstrates how to narrow down your search results, both in MILO and other databases.
Tip #1 - Keywords
Databases can get confused when putting in an entire research question, so instead narrow it down to a few key words to help refine your search.
Example: You would like to search "the psychological effects of poverty on children", try simplifying it down to "psychology" and "impoverished children" first. You can add other specific terms to your search later to find what you're looking for.
Tip #2 - Brainstorm synonyms
Before you do any searching, come up with a list of terms similar to your topic, this can help when researching as it provides different results when combining them in different ways. You may have some searches that do not come up with anything you are looking for, but you may find results that you never would have expected!
Example: If one your keywords is "poverty", try replacing it with "poor" or "economically disadvantaged" to see if your results change.
Tip #3 - Combine keywords using AND and OR
If you include the word AND in your search, it tells the database that your results must contain both of the keywords you mention.
Example: A search for "psychology AND impoverished children" tells the database that you want resources about psychology and they must also include information about impoverished children as well. This search would likely give you broad results about how being in poverty effects children in general. To narrow down these results, you can add a specific location, for example you could search "psychology AND impoverished children AND United States".
The word OR can be used in a similar way, but this is most useful when you want to include more than one keyword that means roughly the same thing.
Example: If searching for a specific location like "United States OR America OR USA" would retrieve any results that contain one or more of these terms.
HINT: You can also combine these techniques. The sample below would tell the database that results must mention psychology, as well as mentioning impoverished children, the United States or results that also contain the word America.
