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Finding Articles
There are several ways to look for articles for your particular research question:
1. Easiest, but results include non-articles and some irrelevant results – Find It!
Pros
- Very easy to use. Pick a general topic and a specific search term
- Good for when you just need a few articles for your project
Cons
- Mixes books and videos into the results (but can be narrowed down later to articles only)
- Provides a very large number of results which must be narrowed down in order to find relevant articles
2. Easy, with more options and more results – Google Scholar
Pros
- Easy to use. Pick a specific search term, or go to the advanced search and choose a general topic.
- Advanced features let you select a date range
- Good for when you just need a few articles for your topic and you don’t want to miss a good article
Cons
- May locate articles that USF cannot provide immediate access to. You can get these through InterLibrary Loan, but it might take days or weeks.
- Article results will be mixed with books
3. More work, but best results – Subject Guides
Pros
- Tells you which article databases are going to be the best for your topic
- Each database provides you with good searching options
- Good for when you need to locate all of the relevant articles for your topic, such as for an important research paper, thesis, or dissertation
Cons
- More work involved. You must choose a general topic area first, then go to each suggested database to search for articles. You may have to do multiple searches.