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Mathematics: Searching Tips

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

If we have access to an article through our subscriptions, you will often see a drop-down box labeled "Access options", where you can select PDF or Online full text. In some cases, there will simply be a button labeled "Access now (PDF)". 

 

If we do not have full text access to an article, you have the option to request it through our interlibrary loan system, Oscar Express. 

For more information on interlibrary loan, visit our Oscar Express page. 

 

 

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 of Searching in General Science Journals

Searching in the "Nature" general science journals (Nature Publishers)

Using Publication Finder to search in the journal "Science"

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:

         

Too Few vs. Too Many