An interdisciplinary tool for finding books, articles and more from the Ohio University Libraries. This is a good place to start researching any topic for which you need academic research.
What are research articles (aka scholarly or peer reviewed articles)?
Experts (including professors) conduct research on their topic of interest and report on results in research journals.
The articles go through a process of stringent review known as "peer review" where other experts read the article and decide whether it gets published.
Most research articles will have a review of previous research on the topic, a presentation of the methods and data for their research and a bibliography.
Break up your search into its smallest parts. Ex: instead of searching for "gender differences in classroom communication" search for classroom AND communication AND gender
Think about other ways that an author might describe your topic. Articles gender differences in any type of communication might also use: (women OR gender OR girls OR men OR boys)
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.
Too many articles leaving you overwhelmed? Add more search terms. The more words in your search, the fewer results you should see, since they will have to include ALL of those words
If you're not finding what you need, contact me. I'd love to talk with you about your research topic and figure out how we can tweak your search to be more useufl.
For example:
Using AND and OR in Searches
Shakespeare AND Symbolism
Shakespeare AND (symbolism OR metaphors)
Shakespear* AND (symbol* OR metaphor*)
Shakespeare AND (film* OR cinema OR motion picture*)
Phrase Searching
Shakespeare and "All's Well That Ends Well" (so search will not break apart phrase)