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Research Guides

Real Prosperity in Sustainable Societies: Scholarly Articles & Books

Searching Library Databases

 

Databases work by matching your search terms with the items in the database, in this case information about articles.  Generally when searching a library type database, link your search terms with the word "AND". 

We should consider any and all terms that authors might use to describe our research topic and any synonyms for those termsWe might do searches on:

  • sustainability AND energy
  • sustainability AND environment
  • sustain* AND (energy OR economy OR environment OR climate)

The * symbol tells the database to search for that root word and any possible ending to that word.

Quotations tell the database to search for that exact phrase.

Searching is a bit of an art so be creative and use a variety of search terms and strategies in order to find the best articles on your topic.

Remember the publication cycle - it takes time for subjects to appear in scholarly articles and books.  Depending on the newness of your topic, you may not find scholarly sources on your exact topic. 

Cartoon from Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University

     Finding Articles

This is a multi-disciplinary project.  We will need to look for scholarly literature in several disciplinesThese databases will be a good start.  The subject guides for these disciplines may also help: BioResource Science & Engineering, Business, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Economics, Environment, Government Publications, Health/Medicine, News, Political ScienceSociology,and Urban Design & Planning.  

To find the fulltext of the article (if not provided directly in the database), click on the button and work your way through the screens. Not all articles will be online, some may only be in print, others may not be available at the UW.

 

     Finding Books

     Tips for searching UW WorldCat for Books

  • Use the toolbar on the left of your results lists to limit the Format to Books -- this will automatically omit book reviews, other articles and such from your search results.
  • When searching for a specific book use quotations around the first few words of the title, e.g. "media and the path to peace"
  • Getting too many irrelevant results? Use the toolbar on the left to narrow down your search.  You can limit by format, author, language, publication date, etc.