The library has a general guide to deciding on keywords to use when searching databases and indexes. It includes advice on how to narrow or widen your search and what to do if the results from your search aren't what you're looking for.
Reference works such as Wikipedia can be useful for determining keywords for your search. Look for how your topic is referred to in the article and use these terms to search in the catalog or database. Remember, do not to cite Wikipedia because it is an encyclopedia based on other resources. You can cite the source Wikipedia cites, if you look them up in the library catalog and find they are relevant to your research.
The library also has a guide on how to find the full text of an article after you've found it in a database. If you still can't find it after looking at the guide, please email me or use the Ask a Librarian options for getting help. If the library doesn't have access to the article, you can request it through InterLibrary Loan and a scanned copy will be sent to you.
The general article search will allow you to search keywords over a number of journals. This will provide you with many results, but you will have to sort through them to eliminate ones you are not interested in (such as book reviews). It will also likely miss some more specialized articles or articles not in English.
When you use this search, there should be links to download a PDF of the article or to request it through Interlibrary Loan. If you have trouble with this, please contact the library help or me.
After finding an article that seems related to your topic, you can often find more articles and books by looking through the article's bibliography.
You can find more potential sources by looking for articles that cite the article you found. There are a variety of tools and databases that will do this search for you, including Scopus. In Scopus, search for the article (by title and/or author) and click on the number under the "Citations" column. This will display a list of articles and books citing that article that you can then consult.
The Database List is a complete list of all the library's databases. It can be searched by keyword such as "India" or "South Asia".