Check out the library's self-paced tutorial How do I search library databases? to learn the basics of database searches.
1. What is Mardigian Search and why should I use it?
- Mardigian Search is the library's Discovery search box, which looks through all of the library's databases at once.
- Mardigian Search is great for:
- finding out what's been studied in your research area
- finding sources about interdisciplinary topics
2. How do I search for my topic?
- Identify the main ideas of your topic and use those as your search words
- Each article or book has tags assigned to it, words or shorts phrases that make them searchable - you want your search words to match those tags
- Words like factors, effects, challenges are not used as tags - don't include them as search words
Example: The topic for your research project is: The medicalization of female genital cutting
- A search about this topic could be: medical* female "genital cutting"
- Add an * to the end of a word stem to search for all words that begin with that word stem
- medical* will search for medicalize, medicalizing, and medicalization
- Put a phrase in quotation marks to search for its words as a phrase, not separate words
- "genital cutting" searches for genital cutting as a phrase, not separate words
3. How do I focus the search hits to just academic, peer-reviewed articles?
- Use Refine Your Search options to focus your search results to just academic (peer-reviewed) articles
- Click on Peer Review
- Click on Journal article under the Content Type heading
4. I have too many irrelevant search results. How do I focus them?
- Click on Quick Look when you find an article that looks interesting
- Look at its assigned Subjects (tags)
- Add any relevant subjects to your search
- This will also help you develop your research topics and search for books and articles for them
5. How do I know my search words match the tags assigned to articles about my research question?
- As you scroll through the search hits, click on Quick Look and look at the Subjects (tags) assigned to the relevant articles you find
- See if they match your search words - if they don't change your search words accordingly
- Subjects (tags) also help you identify the specific populations or issues in your research area
6. How do I preview the abstract/summary of articles in the list of search hits?
- Click on Quick Look below the article title to look at the abstract of the article
7. How do I access the article so I can read the whole thing?
- Click on Full Text Online
- Look for pdf Full Text or HTML Full Text links
8. I can't find anything on my topic. What do I do?
- The search words you're using to describe your topic may not match the tags that have been assigned to sources about that topic. Try different search words that mean the same thing.
- There may not be research tying your main ideas together yet. Try searching for your main ideas separately and linking their findings together.
- If you've found one article that's relevant for your topic, look through the sources in its References list to see if any of them are also relevant to your research.
- Ask your course professor or your course librarian, Nadine Anderson, for help
