Although you can start your literature review through places like EasySearch or Google Scholar, your results will be very broad-based and may not return all resources that are relevant to your topic.
A better place to get specialized resources for your research would be a database targeted at your discipline(s). You can find a complete list of the library's databases on the A-Z Databases List.
Filter by:
Or, search for a specific database by name.
Subject Librarians are available to provide specialized research help in your discipline. They can help you narrow your topic, brainstorm search strategies, and identify the best places to begin your search. Use the Subject Specialist list to identify which librarian you should contact!
You can find target resources and research guidance on the home pages of each topical library - for example, the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) or the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center.
The library has created many guides to get students started on their research. Some are more broad in scope, while others are targeted to a special topic or class assignment. You can explore Library Guides by subject, type, library, or title.
When you know your topic and want to explore what else has been written, you will search for articles, books, dissertations, and other types of publications in various databases. It is important and useful to know how different search terms work in databases. Here, we will cover keyword and subject searches.
A keyword search involves typing into the search box the terms that you use when you think about your topic.
A subject or descriptor search means that you have identified (usually through keyword searching and looking at your results) the specific terminology used in a database to talk about your subject.
Subject and descriptor terms tend to be more formal and also more precise (less ambiguous)
A good example is the term teenager. We use that term in everyday speech and authors may use it in their articles, but a database is most likely to assign the subject heading of adolescents.
