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Searching Strategies from Basic to Advanced

This guide provides an approach to strategic searching, in which you gradually target your search by learning from each result and then adjusting the search terms for a more focused set of results.

Individual Databases vs. OneSearch

The search box on the library homepage searches about 50 databases at once. This is often a good first search to try, as many search topics cross disciplines, and resources for those topics can be found in a variety of databases. Child Development articles on a single topic, for example, might be found in a psychology database, a sociology database, an education database, or a science database. 

But sometimes, you know you want to stay within a single discipline, and you have a hard time creating a search that keeps the other disciplines out of the results. This is a good time to try a single database. 

From the library homepage under FIND RESOURCES, you can navigate to the Full List of Library Databases. 

Full List of Library Databases dropdown under "Find Resources" on library homepage.

There you will see a list of all the databases you can search individually. 

While the interface might look a little different, all of the strategies outlined in the first page of this guide still apply.