Select EVERYTHING (above the search box). This will include results from many sources, including magazines, newspapers, books, and scholarly journals. If you just want scholarly articles, be sure to filter your results to Peer-reviewed journals.
Important note: Because peer-reviewed journal articles can take a few years to be researched, written, and reviewed, any recent heroes/villains will not yet have much, if anything, written about them in the scholarly literature. News sources would have more articles on recent characters, though they wouldn't be as detailed or analytical.
Select the fewest words possible to type into the search box -- just the ones most important to your topic. Dorothy's herojourney in the Wizard of Oz
Type AND between each new word or idea. For example: dorothy AND wizard of oz AND hero*
Put quotation marks (" ") around phrases. For example: dorothy AND "wizard of oz" AND hero*
Use synonyms and related terms:
dorothy AND oz AND journey dorothy AND oz AND quest dorothy AND oz AND adventure dorothy AND oz AND home dorothy AND oz AND transform* dorothy AND oz AND monomyth "wizard of oz" AND hero's journey
Truncate with an asterisk (*) to find articles with different endings of the same word: transform*will find articles with the word transform, transforms, transformed, transforming, or transformation.
Use filters to refine your list of results:
Peer-reviewed journals
Video Tutorial: Searching the Library Catalog - All Formats