For individual research help, schedule an appointment to meet with a librarian.
Select the most important 2-3 ideas related to your topic. Put the word AND between each new word or idea; this tells the database to look for resources with ALL your terms.
tooth decay AND flossing
Use quotation marks ( " " ) around phrases (two or more words); this tells the database to look for the words in a specific order.
"tooth decay" AND flossing
Use an asterisk ( * ) to find multiple versions of one word. Using decay* as a search term will include results that refer to decay, decayed, and decaying.
decay*
Articles are published in periodicals, which is any type of publication published at a regular interval (weekly, monthly, quarterly). Periodical types include magazines, newspapers, trade publications, and scholarly journals which:
Magazines, journals and newspapers typically do NOT provide a summary or overview of a topic.
More information on finding scholarly, peer-reviewed articles.
This video by Yavapai College Library in Prescott, Arizona demonstrates the different types of information found in Google versus library databases.
Click the icon located in the bottom right corner to watch the video in fullscreen mode.