Struggling to find academic material for your assignment, research proposal, or thesis?The Library can help with a literature search—a systematic and comprehensive search for published academic resources on your topic.
How to request a literature search:
Complete our online form or use the Unisa Student App (available on the Android Play Store and iStore). In the app, go to Library and select Literature Search Form.
1. Basic Search:
Use the search bar at the top of any page.
Enter keywords, article or journal titles, author names, or DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
Click the search icon to see results, and you can refine them further on the results page.
2. Filtering Search Results:
On the results page, click "Refine your search" to add filters, like subject, publication name, author, keyword, or date range.
Click the + icon to view more options and check boxes to add filters. The page will refresh with updated results after each filter.
Literal Phrases: Use quotes for exact matches (e.g., "blue moon").
Multilingual Search: Supports searches in multiple languages.
Fuzzy Search: To construct a query that includes a term for which multiple spellings may exist, use the fuzzy search feature by appending a tilde (~). For example, entering the term dostoyevsky~ returns documents containing the variants dostoevsky, dostoievski, etc.
3. Advanced Search Options:
Boolean Operators:
AND: Finds results with both terms (e.g., "cat AND dog").
OR: Finds results with either term (e.g., "cat OR dog").
NOT: Excludes a term (e.g., "cat NOT dog").
Wildcards:
Use ? to replace a single letter (e.g., "l?st" finds "last", "list").
Use * to replace multiple letters (e.g., "p*diatric" finds "pediatric", "paediatric").
Parentheses: Group terms for better searches (e.g., "care AND (cat OR dog)").
Proximity Search: Use quotation marks and a tilde (e.g., "debt forgiveness"~10) to find terms within a certain number of words.
4. Search Results:
Results show a brief snippet or summary from the article.
Sort results by relevance, title, date, or author.
5. Errors & Automatic Fixes:
If you make a mistake (e.g., mismatched quotation marks or incorrect Boolean terms), the system automatically fixes it or shows an error.
Source: Searching Taylor & Francis site