ENGL 181: Engineering Communications

Use the following techniques to find more relevant resources. They can be used in nearly all of our databases. 

• Keyword/Phrase Searching
  • Use only the major words in your subject when searching. Many databases delete what are called STOP WORDS - words that don't add meaning to the search, such as The, Of, A, And, When, What, etc.
  • When searching for a specific phrase or title, use Quotation Marks around the phrase: "cloud computing", "data centers", etc.
• Boolean Operators
  • AND - brings up results that include ALL terms
  • OR - brings up results that include EITHER of the terms 
  • NOT - removes results that include the term after NOT
• Truncation
  • When you are searching for a word that may have multiple endings or would have plural forms, use a Truncation symbol (usually the *) to make sure you are able to get all the results: Cloud Comput* -> Cloud Computing, Cloud Computers, Cloud Computations, etc. 
  • Note that some databases already do this automatically so you may not need to do so.