LibGuides: LB 133 Fall 2025 (Fink): Tips on Searching in a Database

Setting Google Scholar to the MSU Library

2. Click on the three lines on the upper left of the screen.

3. Go to "Settings."

4. Go to "Library Links."

5. In the search box below "Show library access links for (choose up to five libraries):," enter "Michigan State University."

6. You should now see one checked option ("Open WorldCat--Library Search"), and two unchecked options, one for Michigan State University Libraries--MSU Libraries Access," and one for "BTAA MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY--Proquest Fulltext." Check both of the unchecked options.

7. Hit "Save."

Now, when you search on Google Scholar, you should see a "MSU Libraries Access" link next to each article. If you click on it, the library webpage will walk you through finding full text of the article in our holdings.

Lyman Briggs Librarian

Chana Kraus-Friedberg

Email Me

Contact:

366 W. Circle Drive
East Lansing, MI 48824

517-884-8462

Subjects: Medicine, Public Health

Database search tips

Databases don't recognize questions or normal sentences, the way Google or ChatGPT would. To give it something it recognizes, pull out the keywords from your question and combine them with AND. So instead of typing in What is Flint, Michigan's water source?, type in Flint, Michigan AND water source.
Imagine the kind of articles that might be useful to you, and pick keywords that will be unique to those articles. For example, don't try searching for study AND water pollution. Almost every article in the database will be about someone studying something, so that will get you a lot of irrelevant results. The same with words like research or experiment. Instead, think about what interests you about water pollution--do you want to know how it impacts child development? Or the fish population? Typing in water pollution AND fish population will get you much more relevant results.
Academic articles, in general, don't "take sides" at the outset. They'll tell you what question they're looking to answer in their research (effectiveness of trained dogs in tracking endangered turtles, for example), but not what conclusion they expect to come to (10 reasons why trained dogs are good at tracking endangered turtles). You'll get better results if you avoid words like "pro" or "con."
Think about different words that researchers might use to describe what you're talking about. For example, if you're looking for results on postpartum (after giving birth) health, you could try using the word postnatal to see if that gets you more results.
If you want the database to search for a group of words as a phrase, type them in quotation marks, like this: "endangered turtles."
When you use the word and in your search, always capitalize it. This is just a weird quirk of some databases--some will try searching for the word and (which will appear in every English-language article) if you don't capitalize it.
Keep in mind that it's often easier to change your search strategy than to change your project topic. Once in a while there just isn't much research on a particular topic, but usually you can change your keywords slightly, or even change the database you're using, and find better results. You can always contact me (your librarian) for help if you aren't finding what you need.