These linked icons indicate your access to the resources discussed in this guide. | |
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Library Collection |
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Website |
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Subscription Database (Law School Only) |
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Subscription Database (University-wide) |
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Bloomberg Law (Password Required) |
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Lexis (Password Required) |
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Westlaw (Password Required) |
Keyword(s) are significant or descriptive word(s) or phrase(s) expressing the topic you plan to research.
Examples: swine; "genetically engineered crops"; "modular reactors"
Search for discussions of your topic in government documents, scholarly, peer-reviewed journals or reliable, accurate news sources; compile a list of descriptive words, synonyms and acronyms.
Suggested starting points:
Connectors are words or symbols that establish relationships between keywords in a search.
In bibliographic databases, there are usually two search options: "basic" and "advanced":
Connectors for searching bibliographic databases & online catalogs:
When searching full text databases, it is recommended that for more effective searching, a different set of connectors be used:
Connectors for searching full text:
Truncation refers to the act or process of shortening or reducing.
When constructing a search, symbols can be attached to the end of keywords (truncating a word) to retrieve different forms of a word.