Tech 621: Global Perspectives on Technology : Basic and Advanced Search Tips

***NOTE: Below are resources for effectively searching both the Purdue Libraries' research databases and Google Scholar. Take the time to drop your keywords into both Google Scholar and the Libraries' research databases to see the results differences. Google Scholar is a good way to gain preliminary ideas and keywords. It's also a way to check the citations on an article to see articles that have followed an article you liked. But it has few ways to effectively hone your search. It also uses machine automated criteria for your search results. The Libraries' research databases are human curated by information specialists. You will find that Google Scholar results remain broad, while the research databases are very specific to your field -- many articles are not freely available through the internet, but only through the research databases. The only way to do a thorough information search is to search the Libraries research databases.  

• Introduction to Primo

  This video explains how to use Primo, the Libraries' search tool for finding relevant articles, books and other materials on any topic. Note: Primo is an excellent tool for search results that show the landscape of a topic, but you definitely want to go into recommended, topic-specific databases for effective search results -- Primo does not reach everything within all databases.
• Introduction to Basic Search Strategies for Research Databases

  This video is an introduction on the difference between searching research databases and Google products.
• Advanced Search Strategies in Library databases: Part 1

  This tutorial demonstrates three advanced search techniques: keyword searching, Boolean operators, and truncation.
• Advanced Search Strategies tutorial: Part 2

  This tutorial explains the search strategy called field searching.
• Basic Search Strategies for Research Databases: Part 3

  This tutorial shows how to use Boolean operators as a basic search strategy.

Citation management tools help you track and organize the articles you are gathering for your research. Citation management tools also generate in-text citations and references when you connect them to your word processing software of choice, such as Word. They also allow for sharing documents across collaborations.  NOTE: In-text citation and reference errors do occasionally occur with citation managers, so always check your citations and references.

Below are two popular, free citation managers, but are only two among others, such as EndNote.

*** NOTE: When you are searching Library databases, you must access the databases through the Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies website. If you try to go to Scopus directly, for example, you can have trouble accessing full-text articles. For more information, please read our Off-Campus Access guide.

Additionally, if you want to link your Google Scholar searches to Library materials (full-text articles), see directions below.