Scholarly articles are peer-reviewed materials published in academic journals. Databases hold records of the articles from the academic journals so that you can find them. Different databases have different journals included and thus they will all have different collections of articles. The best way to find scholarly articles is to search in academic databases. Use the tips below then use the Databases tab to navigate to different science focused and general databases.
Symbol | Example | Description |
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AND | (cats) AND (dogs) | Adds search terms to the search, will limit the results to only articles that contain both terms. AND is usually implied, but can be used with parentheses and OR to make the search more precise. |
OR | (Arabidopsis OR "A. thaliana") | Expands the search, a good way to add synonyms or binomial names to search terms. This example will return any article with either the word "Arabidopsis" or A. thaliana. |
NOT | Ash NOT tree | Excludes articles that have the term. This will return results with the word "ash" but not if the results also contain the word "tree." |
* | bio* | Signifies a truncation symbol. Will yield articles with the prefix submitted and any ending, such as: biology, biological, biome, biometrics, biography, biotic, etc. |
" " | "breast cancer" | Searches the exact phrase found in the quotes. This search will yield articles with "breast cancer," but NOT articles that only contain the word breast, or the word cancer, or contain the words separately such as cancer of the breast. |