Need sources for your literature review? Struggling to find sources for your assignment, research proposal or thesis?
The Library can assist with a literature search, which is a systematic and comprehensive search for published, academic material on your specific subject/topic. How do you request one? Simply go to Request a literature search .
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eJournal Collection
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eBook Collection
With the eBook Collection you have:
The Advanced Searching option is available by clicking on gear icon next to the search box on the home page and chosing Advanced Search from the options.
The OR operator (or |)
The OR operator (case-insensitive) allows results to be returned even when they contain only one of the words entered.
For example wheat OR maize will give results which include either one of the terms "wheat" or "maize".
The NOT operator
The NOT operator (case-insensitive) excludes results that contain the term following the NOT.
For example wheat NOT maize will give results which include the term "wheat" but exclude the term "maize".
The AND operator (or &)
The AND operator (case-insensitive) provides the same results as the default on our site.
If you search for evolutionary patterns of families, the search that will actually be carried out will be (evolutionary AND patterns AND of AND families).
The NEAR operators
The NEAR operator (case-insensitive) will return results where the search term on the left is within ten words of the word to the right of the NEAR operator. For example system NEAR testing will return results in which the word "system" is located within ten words of the word "testing", in either order.
The ONEAR operator means the search terms on either side must both be near each other in the text and also appear in the order you’ve entered them in the search box.
You can narrow the ten-word range by including a forward slash and number along with the NEAR operator.
For example information NEAR/4 systems will return results where the word "information" appears within four words of the term "systems".
Precedence
If you include multiple operators in your search, they are interpreted in the following order of precedence: NOT, OR, AND.
Operators work only on the words immediately before and after the operator (and for NOT, only the word after), so if you would like an entire phrase to be evaluated with the operator, put it in quotes.
Because two words without an operator between them are treated as an AND query by default, this means
plastic bottles OR water pollution
will be interpreted as
plastic AND (bottles OR water) AND pollution
instead of as the probably intended
"plastic bottles" OR "water pollution"
The * Wildcard
An asterisk (*) entered as part of a search is interpreted as a substitute for any number of letters.
For example, a search for hea* will return results containing any word starting with "hea", such as "head", "heats", "health", "heated", "heating" and so on. The wildcard search works best when there are at least 3 characters before the wildcard operator.
The ? Wildcard
A question mark (?) entered in a search is interpreted as a substitute for any single letter.
For example, a search for hea? will return only results that contain four-letter words starting with "hea", such as "head", "heat", "heal", and so on. The wildcard search works best when there are at least 3 characters before the wildcard operator.
A search with multiple terms entered within quotation marks ("") will return only results that contain those words or their stemmed variations in that exact order.
Your search will return results that share the stem(s) of the words you enter in the search box based on your selected interface language.
For example, if you have English selected as your interface language, a search for running" will return matches that contain "runner", "run", "ran", and so on. Changing the interface language will change the stemming language and can therefore change your search results.
Filter results by access
By default, search results are displayed without regard for your access rights to the content. If you would like to see only results to which you have access, uncheck the box labelled "Include preview-only content."
Facets
The facet boxes that display on the left side of the search results page are sets of characteristics that describe the current set of results, with the number next to each item indicating how many results match each characteristic. Selecting an item in a facet box will refine your search results so that only those results that fit the selected item remain. Click "see all" to view and select from all facet items for a particular facet.
Date Published
You can narrow your results by date by clicking "Date Published" at the top of your search results and entering different values in the date boxes.
Search within a search
In order to search within a search, simply add keywords to any existing search terms in the keyword box at the top of the page and re-submit your search.