Brunel Library On campus and online
www.brunel.ac.uk/library
Database Guide: Academic Search Complete A database is an electronic resource that enables you to search for journal articles and other relevant material related to your research. Academic Search Complete is a popular database within the fields of Social Sciences and the Humanities, among others.
Finding Academic Search Complete Academic Search Complete can be found in the list of databases under the Databases A-Z link on the Library home page once you have logged in to the e-Library.
Click here to login as soon as you go to the Library home page. Click here to access the A-Z listing of databases. Library home page showing the Login to e-Library and Databases links
Go the Library home page: www.brunel.ac.uk/library
Click on Login to e-Library (top left)
Select Databases
Select A
Find Academic Search Complete and click on it to select it
Searching Academic Search Complete Once you are connected to Academic Search Complete, you can begin your search.
Enter your keywords in the search boxes. You can link them together using the words ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘not’ as appropriate.
Enter keywords
Use to limit results to full text only Select publication and document type you want to find.
Academic Search Complete - Search screen
The search results will indicate the title of the article, the author(s), the title of the journal in which the article is printed, volume, and issue. Some databases will provide a summary or abstract of the article and others will provide a link to the full text article.
Click to get the full text article
Academic Search Complete - Search Results screen
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Advanced searching: improving your results Narrow your search results If your first search does not find the results you were hoping for, try a different search or modify your search. The search above found over 4,500 results! With so many results, you need to narrow down your search. Using different keywords or a different combination of keywords will find more, less or different results.
To improve or narrow down your search results, you can: o
Add more keywords
o
Select a particular field in which to search, e.g. Abstract, Title or Author
o
Choose what type of literature you want, e.g. Academic Journals or Subject
1 2 3
2 1
No. of results found 3
Narrowing your search results
The search results have been narrowed significantly, from over 4500 to 32 results!
How can I search for journal articles by keyword? When conducting any kind of search, follow the steps below: Pick out the main keywords that describe your topic Think of alternative terms, including alternative spellings Carry out your search and evaluate your results Modify your search if needed
Search tips Having trouble finding relevant articles? Getting too many results? Try the following to search more effectively:
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AND
OR
NOT
Phrases
Add more keywords to your search by linking them with AND. This will narrow down your search and make it more specific, e.g. war AND refugees AND displacement - will only return results with all of those keywords. Link similar keywords together using OR to increase the number of results, e.g. war OR refugees OR displacement - will search for either or all of these terms Narrow your search by linking words with NOT e.g. surfing NOT internet - will find articles which mention the term surfing but not internet. Search for a phrase by using inverted commas e.g. “naval history” – will look for that recognised term rather than the individual words
Truncation
If you want to use terms which start the same but have different endings, e.g. histor* will search for history, historical, histories etc.
Keyword Location
narrow your results by searching for keywords within a specific location, e.g. abstract, title or author
Other databases and further help If you need to search another database but are unsure which one, go to your Subject page for a list of those most relevant. From the Library home page, www.brunel.ac.uk/library select Finding Resources and the Subject pages link. Click on the link to your subject area, and then select the Databases tab for a list of relevant journal databases. For further advice on database searching: - Visit the Pod on the ground floor of the Library - Contact your Subject Liaison Librarian http://www.brunel.ac.uk/services/library/about/sll - Search on our LibAnswers site, by clicking on the Got a Question link on the Library home page.
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