Library databases can help you locate articles published in scholarly journals. Such articles are typically "peer-reviewed". What is peer-review?
When using library databases to locate scholarly articles:
- Be patient--searching for literature is an iterative process!
- View the sample searches in the help links provided in library databases. This will help you craft a search. Use "and" to narrow your search, or "or" to broaden it. Also, many databases use an asterisk as in bacter* to search on (bacteria or bacterial or bacterium) or use quote marks to search phrases ("ultraviolet light"). For details, check the help docs for databases you use.
- To search Medline (PubMed), just put in search terms beside each other when you first do a search, with no other special search syntax, i.e., no punctuation, no quotation marks, no boolean operations
- After finding a relevant article, see if the database gives you "cited by" links that lead you to articles, published later in time, that cite the article you like; this is a great way to find additional bibliography and possibly identify a scholarly debate that can be the focus of your project;
- Look at the item’s own cited references;
- If you do an article search and find a search result you like, look for a related/similar articles link;
- See if the database enables you to filter for "review articles"; a good review article will give you an overview of a discipline, plus it will have good bibliography.
- Author links that might bring up other articles by the same author(s).