You do not have to do your research alone. In fact, your professors want you to reach out to librarians for help.

• Live anonymous chat with a librarian 9am - 5pm, M-F (extended hours often available as well).
• Schedule a research consultation with a librarian (on zoom or in person). One meeting can help you: locate reliable resources; identify scholarly sources; refine and revise topics; learn how to search library databases, and more! 
  • Schedule an appointment directly with your Library & Information Sciences librarian, Katie DeVries. 

Google Scholar is valuable for interdisciplinary research. It is most useful if you change Google Scholar library links settings to connect with the UI Libraries.

• Click on the "ViewIt@UILink" in your results list for UILink services including full text (when available), links to our InfoHawk+Catalog, Interlibrary Loan requests, and more.
• Google Scholar "cited by" links help you locate additional articles written on a topic and other authors in dialogue with a particular article/subject.
• NOTE: Even with library links settings mapped to the UI Libraries, Google Scholar is only searching a small portion of the resources available through the UI Libraries.

InfoHawk+ is our UI Libraries' catalog plus. Search results contain items from our physical collections, electronic articles and books, and more.

• Sign in with your hawkid and password (upper right hand corner) when using InfoHawk+. Once logged in you can make use of your e-shelf, save items from result lists, and more.
• Make use of filters. They are a powerful way to refine your search.
• Use advanced search to combine multiple search terms using boolean and other search strategies.
• NOTE: InfoHawk+ is only searching a small portion of the resources available through the UI Libraries.

Use databases strategically. As a student, faculty, or staff, you have access to the many databases subscribed to by the UI Libraries. You can find a list of available databases on our Databases A-Z page. A description is provided for each resource. Some are more general. Some more specific. Each source will look slightly different but the search strategies demonstrated below work across resources.

Use the search feature on the Databases A-Z page to help narrow the list. You might begin by searching the name of your discipline/major (e.g., English, Engineering, Linguistics). You could also try searching with narrower terms to related to your topic. 

Disciplinary Research Guides often contain lists of databases relevant to specific majors and courses and can help narrow down your choices.

Search terms/keywords

Use a variety of terms to describe your topic. Keep a running list of terms you find as you search. You will often discover vocabulary related to your topic that you might not have thought of on your own. Use these new terms strategically in combination with the terms retrieving your most relevant results.

• love OR romance
• nature OR environment OR outdoors
• "billionaire wealth" OR "extreme wealth" OR superrich

Use quotation marks for phrase searching.

• "interpersonal relationship"
• "sexual health"
• "social mobility"

Use truncation to get the search tool (catalog, database, search engine) to search for a root word plus any possible endings.

• flood* = flood, flood, flooded, flooding
• econom* = economy, economic, economical
• psycholog* = psychology, psychological, psychologist

Use AND, OR, and NOT to combine your search terms

• (kinship OR sibling) AND (health OR happiness)
• "climate change" AND migrat* AND "global north"
• "land grant" AND (university OR college)
• dolphins NOT football

Some resources have unique tools that allow you to get creative and concise with your searching for information.

• Searching for empirical articles reporting results using specific methodology: Some databases allow you to add limitations that tell the database to only search in the article abstract (formal article summary), keywords, or subject terms. Limiting your search to these fields for methodological terms (e.g., "interview," "case study," "survey," etc.) is one of the few ways to refine searches so that they include resources more likely to have been published based on findings from your chosen methodology. Not all databases have these options, but if they do, they are likely found in the search drop downs. Using the NOFT code in GenderWatch (and other ProQuest databases) limits the database to search only the title, author's name, abstract, keywords, and subject terms. The most essential information about an article is often contained in these fields, especially in the abstract, including (often) information about the methodology used to conduct the research. NOTE: This search strategy is not perfect (they never are) but is one way to explore specific types of results. Other databases have similar search options.