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Research Guides

Materials Science & Engineering

A research guide to help you find relevant books and articles in the field of metallurgy and materials science

Tips for database (including catalogue) Searching

Boolean Operators
AND only finds results that include ALL your search terms.  NARROW.
OR finds results with ANY of your search terms.  BROAD.
For example: 
  • materials engineering AND life cycle analysis
  • metallurgy OR process metallurgy OR physical metallurgy OR hydrometallurgy
  • plastics OR polymers
  • welding OR bonding

Truncation

Truncation is used to search for alternate word endings in a database. Usually its done by placing an asterisk (*) where you consider the end of the word's root to be. But be careful! If you put the asterisk too soon in the word, you'll get too many irrelevant words in your search results. For example:

vib* 

  • vibration
  • vibrating
  • vibrations
  • vibe
  • vibrant
  • vibes
  • vibrio

vibra*

  • ​vibration
  • vibrating
  • vibrations

Phrase Searching

Adding quotation marks will help you find phrases in a database.

Searching for "metal corrosion" will find results where 'metal' and 'corrosion' appear right beside each other.

Searching for just metal corrosion will find any result where both of those words appear but not necessarily side by side.

Pro Tip: Use all 3 methods together!

Try this:

vibra* machinary AND "metal corrosion"