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HIS271H5: US History, Colonial Era to 1877

Online Database of Peer-reviewed Academic Journals

Tips for Database Searching

To find relevant articles and information in a database, you need to create a search to tell the system to find journal articles on your topic and identify keywords and form a search request.

Successful searching often needs Boolean Searching (Using AND and OR) and Truncation: e.g., asterisk (*).

DON'T PANIC at these terms, you probably know how to do this already. However, just to make sure everyone is aware of these tips, here are two tutorials to make sure.

What Type of Information Are You Using?

0:00 – How to find Ulrichsweb, using LibrarySearch
0:51 -- Remember to type in the JOURNAL title, not the article title
1:58 -- Make sure your article is a research article, since peer reviewed journals have other content
3:21 -- You can access the journal through Ulrichsweb


The following video was created by Cambridge University Press. They show the importance of the peer-review process:

How to Use Oxford Bibliographies Online

Oxford Bibliographies Online provides annotated bibliographies, which help you find primary sources and secondary sources, such as scholarly books, chapters, and articles.

Click and login with UTORID.

0:00 -- Oxford Bibliographies Online is a tool, not for citing
1:35 -- Simple Search
2:46 -- India 'Mutiny' and 'Revolution,' 1857-1858 (entry) as an example
4:34 -- Finding Primary Sources and Secondary Sources
8:23 -- Get Help