*Example LibGuide: Find Articles

When listing database links, remember:

• Use the Database option if you are listing a database. Use the Link option if you are listing to a database not on Butler's A-Z list.  DO NOT enter them as hyperlinks within text
• Whenever possible, make sure you reuse links and connect them back to the comprehensize A-Z list. 
• Fewer is better.
• Rank by relevance. 
• Include a short explanation for each link (customizing is best)

Search engines attempt to match your terms to the items it searches (titles, authors, abstracts, description fields, full text, etc).

However, search engines do NOT understand phrases, sentences, or questions. So when it does this matching, it searches for each term indivdiually. Some searches attempt to find terms in proximity to each other, but this varies depending on where you search.

If your search terms are more than single worlds, employ quotation marks to show the search engine that you want the terms to be found together. The search will look for exactly what you place in the quotation marks, so be sure there are no mistakes.

Search for John F. Kennedy: Returned 9,149 total items.  One item was chosen because it was by John Taylor and another author who works at the Kennedy School of Government.

Search for "John F. Kennedy":  Returned 7,616 total items.  All items use the exact phrase "John F. Kennedy."  Does not find JFK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or John Kennedy.

Search for global climate change: Returned 48,401 total items. One item was "Effects of climate change and wildfire on soil loss in the Southern Rockies Ecoregion." It discusses the global circulation model and climatic changes, so it was returned for this search.

Search for "global climate change": Returned 4,421 total items. All items use the exact phrase "global climate change." Does not find global climatic change, international climate change, global change in climate, global weather change, etc.