COUN 6315 Digital Portfolio

ERIC Example Search

PsycINFO Example Search

ScienceDirect Example Search

Psychology and Behavioral Science Collection

WorldCat Discovery Example Search

Know what you want.

Are you looking for articles, books or other resources? What you want will influence the search tools you use, which will influence the search techniques you use.

Choose your words wisely.

Searches should be constructed in a way that makes most sense to the search tool. They should be efficient and effective. In general, combine key terms.

Be Flexible. Try, try again.

Review your results. How many do you have? If you have retrieved far more results than you would ever use, then you should consider revising your search and adding more search terms. If you retrieved far less results than you expected, check your spelling. If you retrieved far less results than what you need, then you should revise your search and use less key terms or phrases.

Don't change your topic. Change your search.

Very rarely is the comment, "there is nothing on my topic" true. If you are not getting the right results, it probably means your search needs some tweaking or you might need to use another kind of search tool.

Select the best, not the easiest.

Select the article or book that meets your needs, not the one that happens to pop up first. You know more about your needs than the computer ranking system. Also, just because the full text is easy to get doesn't mean the article is the best to get. Finally, you can use Interlibrary Loan/Get it 4 Me.