Welcome to the GEOG 414 Guide
Depending on your topic, your research needs might be more interdisciplinary in nature, using humanities and social sciences journals rather ones in the natural sciences. I can recommend more databases and search strategies. Let me know if you want to chat about your topic!
The databases below include large, interdisciplinary collections. They'll be the best places to comb over to make sure your topic is new research.
Search Tips
Booleans: AND, OR, NOT
- AND combines two search words together. Both must appear in your article, narrowing your results.
- OR allows you to search for synonyms or like terms. Only one of the terms must appear in your article, broadening your results.
- NOT removes a specific term from your results.
Quotation marks
- Phrases stick together as one keyphrase. "climate change"; "blue whale"; "Cretaceous period"
Asterisks
- Add to the end of a root word to find all words that include all words that include that root term. volcan* - volcano, volcanic, volcanology, volcanism
Limiters
- Usually found on the left
- Narrow by subject, date, or peer-reviewed
- For this particular project, you want to cast as wide a net as possible (at least at first), so you likely won't use too many limiters.
Large Databases - Best Bets
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowUsers can navigate forward, backward, and through thousands of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world, searching all disciplines and time spans relevant to their research.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowScienceDirect's Freedom Collection includes extensive full-text journal coverage of the physical, biological, and social sciences.
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowAccess an unprecedented collection of journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos. Many are peer-reviewed and full-text.
- Natural Science Collection This link opens in a new windowScholarly and other publications in agriculture, atmospheric science, biology, earth science, environmental science, and more.
- JSTOR (including ARTSTOR) This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text access to a broad range of resources about the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
AI Research Tools
In addition to ChatGPT and other natural language processing models, there are many AI-supported tools to help you with research.
- Semantic ScholarFree online tool that indexes over 200 million academic papers. This is not a library database, so you may not be able to access the full text of journal articles. Semantic Scholar also pulls from other types of sources including conference abstracts and working papers.
- PerplexityConversational AI that cites articles and provides links in its response. Great for getting a quick summary on existing research.
- ElicitAutomate time-consuming research tasks like summarizing papers, extracting data, and synthesizing your findings. 5000 credits for free.
- Research RabbitDraws visual connections between papers and authors. Great for people who like data visualization to see how citations connect, visualize research landscapes, and collaborate with colleagues.
Google Scholar
Perfect for research projects where you need to see the articles that have already been published about a topic. Google Scholar is not a complete representative of all scholarly journals, so you'll want to check multiple library databases as well.
Other Useful Databases
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new windowCheck out our collection of dissertations to see what research PhD students have recently completed.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesOne of the world's most-cited and comprehensive scientific journals.
