Sample Search for Scholarly Articles

Read scholarship to find research and theoretical analysis. 

Tips:

• Start with keywords that capture what you want to learn about your topic.
• Look for relevant subject terms. 
• Limit to peer reviewed scholarly journals in library databases to find scholarly analysis.
• Use the database to limit by date, geography, subject, and more.
• To help you evaluate if a source is useful, click on the title and read the abstract.
• You can click full text to find only full text articles. If you leave it unchecked, you may learn that we have the article in another library database - or you can borrow it for free through interlibrary loan.

Sample Search of Code Switching. 

1. The keyword we are searching is code switch*

   • The * asterisk added to the root of the word allows the database to search for other variations of the word, such as switch, switching, switches, etc. Using it can help broaden your results.

• Note the search results below. As highlighted in the image, the Subject Headings listed under each result's title give more information about what the article is about, that is, it shows the databases' controlled vocabulary. 
  • This search shows the subject heading term: Code Switching (Linguistics)
  • We can then choose to revise our search, using that term as a phrase instead of just the keyword "Code Switch" or Code Switch*

(click on image to enlarge)

4.  By clicking on the "All Filters" option at the top of the page, I can expand the menu of filters.

   • The image below shows that full menu of options and highlights the other subject terms used by the database that are related to this "Code switching" topic. Using these other search terms might help you to focus your search for other useful sources.

(click on image to enlarge)

5. To find out more about an article, click on it's title - then read the ABSTRACT to decide if an article looks useful.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Multidisciplinary Databases

While the One Search looks in all Holman Library databases at once, I like to start with Academic Search Complete to find useful concepts and search terms!

One Search

The One Search looks in all of our databases at once.

To find scholarly journal articles in the One Search, limit to Peer Reviewed Journals after you search.

Specialized Database in Communication Studies

Use this database to find articles in the field of communication studies.

Click on a title to find the article abstract, or summary. 

If you find a title that is abstract only (not full text), you may request it for free through InterLibrary Loan.