• When you link to a full text article from off campus you will be presented with a log-in screen. Log in with your Campus Connect ID and password.  (If you have already logged into Campus Connect and are using the Library tab, you should not be asked to log in again.)
• Check to see if the journal is scholarly or refereed/peer-reviewed.
• Here is more information from Google Scholar.

Things to remember:

1. Think of Google Scholar as a quick look t "see what's out there." There is much more scholarly material available to you as an Ivy Tech student or staff member by searching various journal and ebook databases separately.
2. Relying on just one source is not usually the best search strategy. Yyou will want to search across all the relevant databases, varying your search strategy and taking advantage of the specialized indexing that databases can offer.
3. Google Scholar can be a helpful starting point for a search before you focus your topic and begin looking comprehensively for the highest quality information.
4. Remember, searching within a database like EBSCOhost's Academic Search Premier or ProQuest's Historical New York Times allows search configurations and access to content that you can't do with Google Scholar.
5. If you need help: Browse our Library databases By Subject to find out which databases are most relevant to your topic. Or seek advice about the best resources by talking to your librarian.
6. Remember, this is a "beta" technology.  It will not always work seamlessly.  Library staff can provide assistance.

Quick Search Tips

1. Lead with the most important word or phrase first.
2. Avoid Stop Words (such as adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, or forms of "be") The more stop words in your query, the less likely your results will include what you're looking for.
3. Boolean Basics The Boolean AND command is automatically implied in ALL Google searches. Boolean OR must be in all capital letters, or else google will simply ignore it. Boolean NOT is the minus sign "-" and must be in front of each word you want to exclude.
4. No Case Sensitivity Google searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you enter them, are understood as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington," "George Washington," and "George washington" all return the same results.
5. Use Quotation marks You can force Google to look for words in the exact order you type them in by putting quotation marks around the words in your search.
6. Restrict Domain In order to help you find quality hits, you might want to restrict your search only to Web sites at government or educational institutions. You can do this by typing in your search and then the word site: [remember the colon] and then the domain.
7. Don't Assume Singular/Plural Included Google improves its results by ONLY looking at the form of the word that you type in. If you type in the word "cake," it won't necessarily find the word "cakes." Be precise when searching and use the appropriate Boolean command when necessary.
8. No Truncation, But... No user-defined truncation is allowed in Google. Instead, the search engine automatically uses its "stemming" technology. When appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. For specific truncation needs, use a series of searches and the Boolean operators.
9. How to Search Using Common Words Google generally ignores common words and characters such as "this," "where," "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters. It will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box. If a common word is essential to your search, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it (be sure to include a space before the "+" sign) or put quotation marks around two or more words. Ex. "where are you"
10. This NOT That You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign.) This can be useful when you are searching for a term that has more than one meaning; "apple" can refer to the fruit or the computer company. To find web pages about apple that do not contain the word "computer", type:
11. Searching Synonyms You may want to search not only for a particular keyword, but also for its synonyms. Indicate a search for both by placing the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of the keyword. For example, to search for food facts as well as nutrition and cooking information, use:

Advanced Search Page
Google's Advanced Scholar Search screen (shown below) allows researchers an easy way to refine a query by filling in special fields or using a series of pull-down menus. Users can find results containing all of their search terms, an exact prhase, at lease one of their search words, or without specified words, simply by filling in the appropriate text boxes.  Searches by author, publication, date and subject area are also possible.