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Chemistry, Geoscience, & Physics: Searching Tips

Too Few vs. Too Many

NOTE: The URL at the top of the EBSCO page will expire after 30 minutes.  Copy the Permalink into your document to have permanent access to an article.

Main Steps in Searching

- Find more search terms from the titles and subject headings of good articles.

- Use review articles to get an overview, help in choosing your research topic, and the articles in its reference list.

- Keep a research log; details below.

- If you need to be more thorough, after you have reviewed many relevant articles, select several key articles on your topic and: look at their reference list, search for everything the key authors have written, and look at articles that have cited your key articles (many of these are linked in Google Scholar).

Links for Full Text

You can get the Full Text of articles from:

  • vendors such as Ovid,
  • the Full Text Finder software (everything we have access to),
  • Oscar Express - InterLibrary Loan from other libraries.

  • "Find a Journal" in the website footer under Research

Google Scholar

Plusses, Minuses, Off-Campus Settings

+ Good way to find academic synonyms.

+ Great way to find newer articles that cite a relevant one.

+ Good for relationship between two concepts.

= Some free full text via federal research archives and preprints.

-  May not have been published in peer–reviewed journals.

- Can’t limit by discipline.

Off-Campus Settings - to link to Edgewood's full text articles, RefWorks. 

+ Can export citations into RefWorks.  From Settings:

Examples

Truncation: chem* retrieves
       chemical, chemistry,  etc.

Synonyms (from titles, subject headings, and abstracts) to find more articles:
       spreadsheet or matlab or mathematica

If too many irrelevant articles, turn Off the option to search Full Text of articles.

   

Select the Title Field to improve relevance: