Use abstract databases Scopus and Web of Knowledge to search within quality journals across many subject areas. This means that you may find relevant articles in journals in different subject areas.
These databases show references and citations for each article, meaning that you can follow a chain of research forward and backwards in time, finding other relevant articles and identifying highly cited articles.
Indexes journals and conference proceedings in the arts and humanities, social sciences, health, sciences and technology disciplines, providing abstracts to the majority, from 1970 to date. This abstract only database is updated weekly. Use Article Linker (AL) to check for full text online sources.
Split your topic into keywords: To find better and fewer results, think about your keywords. Make sure they accurately describe what you are looking for, and add more keywords to make your search more specific.
Think of alternative keywords: For example, 'recession' could also be referred to as 'credit crunch' or 'financial crisis'. Or, think of the bigger picture. For example, instead of searching for 'unemployment' or 'budget deficits', try searching for 'macroeconomics'.
Search for phrases in "double quotation marks": For example, "economic growth". This will search for the phrase as a whole, instead of the individual words.
Select a data range: For example, you may only want literature published since 2010. Most databases have the option to select dates.
For more help see our Finding resources guide, or contact your Librarian.