What's wrong with Googling your topic? Google gives you 25,000,000 hits when you look for your topic.
Is a database better? Yes! It's easier to focus your search to your particular topic and limit your results to academic research.
First of all, start with a strategy:
- write the topic down in the form of a sentence or question
- identify the key concepts of the question
- try to think of at least one or two synonyms for each of these concepts
- if the database you are going to use has a thesaurus (index of subject headings), go there and search for the concepts and synonyms you have thought of. If related terms are suggested, review these, and possibly select and search a few.
- search each of your concepts separately (you can have 2 or more related terms in a concept)
- use the Boolean operators (and, or, not) to combine the results that you get in the previous step
If you are having trouble thinking of search terms, try making a table asking who, what, where, how, or when.
Use the following databases to find scholarly and peer-reviewed articles on your topic.
Click the GET IT button in any database to get the full text of an article. If UST Libraries doesn't own it, you'll be given an option to request it from another library.
Find journals and newspapers subscribed to by St. Thomas. Enter all or the beginning of the title (e.g., New York Times or Harvard).