Top 5 Tips for Finding Research Articles 

1. Break up your search into its smallest parts (keywords). Ex: instead of searching for "gender differences in classroom communication" search for classroom AND communication AND gender   
2. Think about other ways that an author might describe your topic. Ex: articles about gender differences might also use terms like: (women OR gender OR girls OR men OR boys) 
3. Not sure what search terms to use? Look for information about your article in the background resources listed on this page or check for your topic on Google or Wikipedia. These are all good sources for keywords to use. 
4. Too many articles leaving you overwhelmed? Add more search terms and try applying filters. Narrower searches help ensure that all the results are relevant to your interests.
5. If you're not finding what you need, contact your librarian for help. I'd love to talk with you about your research topic and figure out how we can tweak your search to be more useful. 

For example:  

1. Using AND and OR in Searches
   1. Shakespeare AND Symbolism
   2. Shakespeare AND (symbolism OR metaphors)
   3. Shakespear* AND (symbol* OR metaphor*)
   4. Shakespeare AND (film* OR cinema OR motion picture*)
2. Phrase Searching with Quotation Marks
   1. Shakespeare AND "All's Well That Ends Well" 
   2. "Christopher Durang" AND humor
3. Include Word Roots Using * 
   1. Shakespear* = shakespearean, shakespeare's, shakespeares'
   2. Symbol* = symbolism, symbolic, symbolize
4. Search Filters
   1. Ways to limit your search in the library catalog and most databases:
      • Available Online, Peer Reviewed, Resource Type, Date Range, etc.