Before beginning your research, you'll need to follow these guidelines:
To find out more about each of these steps, please read the other boxes on this page and watch the short videos.
Understanding the difference between basic and advanced searching is the key to effective searches.
Basic search: This is usually the default search type and often looks like a Google-type search box that asks you to simply enter a word or words. It has the advantage of convenience and simplicity; however, it doesn't let you do any kind of complicated searching and you might end up getting thousands of results with no way to limit them.
Advanced search: This is a more sophisticated type of search that allows you to enter multiple words, phrases, search connectors, partial words, etc.. It also lets you manipulate these search terms in various ways, such as searching only specific parts of the document or requiring that search terms be within a certain number of words of each other.
Each type has its advantages; however, in most cases, you'll want to skip the basic search and go immediately to the advanced search. You lose nothing by doing so and you gain a huge number of options. While all databases are set up slightly differently, in the majority of cases the advanced search function can be accessed via a link near the basic search box. It might be called "advanced search", "power search", "more search options", or something similar.
Please watch the videos on this page for more information and examples of how to do advanced searches.