Research Tips
- Diversify your searches: use varying keywords and search in different kinds of databases as well as the library's catalog.
Thesaurus
If you get stuck coming up with some alternate keywords, a thesaurus might be a good place to start. Just remember that connotation matters, so just because something is a synonym doesn't mean it's the right one for your search. A cottage in the forest sounds like a lovely vacation, but a cabin in the woods is a horror movie.
Recommended e-Books
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The Routledge Dictionary of Politics byCall Number: eBookISBN: 9781138436084Publication Date: 2017-06-28A thorough guide to politics, its terminologies, ideologies and institutions.
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Leave No One Behind: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals byCall Number: eBookISBN: 0815737831Publication Date: 2019-10-29The ambitious agenda of United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals pledges that "no one will be left behind." This book aims to translate that commitment into an action-oriented mindset, focused on supporting specific people in specific places who are facing specific problems. In this volume, global experts address challenges faced by people around the world, including women and girls, smallholder farmers, migrants, and those living in extreme poverty. These are many of the people whose lives are at the heart of the aspirations embedded in the SDGs. They are the people most in need of such essentials as health care, quality education, decent work, affordable energy, and a clean environment.
Recommended Databases
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Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowOffers access to an unprecedented collection of resources including journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos. Many are peer-reviewed and full-text. Subjects range from astronomy to zoology.
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HeinOnline Academic This link opens in a new windowProvides topic specific databases including all of the world's constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, Criminal Justice, Religion and the Law, and Women and the Law, etc. Full text case law powered by Fastcase is included.
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GovInfo This link opens in a new windowProvides free public access to the full text of official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government (the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary), both as a searchable database and browsable pages of information.
Use SURF to Find Articles
Advanced Searching
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.