MTE580 - Materials Science & Engineering Seminar - Zhong: Search Tips

1. Ask a librarian: Searching and researching is what we do. Let us work with you to make your searching more productive.

2. Use search filters on the search results page. Some of the most common filters are:

   1. Date

   2. Source Format – book, journal, video

   3. Source Type – Academic Journals, Magazines, Newspapers

   4. Subject – Keywords and phrases found prominently in your search results. Add these as additional search terms.

3. Identify your topic’s key concepts and their synonyms: Add synonyms for your keywords and concepts to increase the number of relevant search results.

4. Use the FullTextFinder icon on the search results page. If you only have the summary/abstract of an article, click on the FullTextFinder to search all 200+ library databases for the full-text.

5. Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Submit an ILL request to get full-text journal articles, books and book chapters.

6. Check bibliographies for additional relevant sources.

7. Check “cited by” links on search results page.

8. Check “related articles” links on search results page.

9. Use Google search features to focus on one website type (e.g. .edu, .gov, .org, .au).

   1. Example: Community garden site:.gov

10. Ask a librarian!

Use these search terms to narrow or broaden your search:

This 3 minute video gives an introduction to effectively searching through the WPI Library Search box.

Source: University of Auckland Library, Auckland, NZ