Search for resources on your topic in these databases. In these databases you will find the free, full text of encyclopedias for background research, articles that compare/contrast controversial topics, newspapers, magazines, and peer-reviewed journals.
Full-text of newspaper, magazine, trade journal, and peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as eBooks, videos and podcasts. Subject coverage includes the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, and literature. It’s a great place to look for resources when you’re not sure where to start.
Magazine, trade journal, newspaper, and peer-reviewed journal articles on a wide range of subjects and is good for research on almost every topic. Most articles are available in full-text. It’s a great place to look for scholarly resources when you’re not sure where to start.
Contains full text online reference books on the subjects of art, business, education, environment, history, medicine, multicultural studies, religion, science, and social science. This alternative to Wikipedia is a great place to start your research.
If you find an awesome article in a database and CCC Library does not have the full text, get it for free anyway! Fill out the Interlibrary Loan request form, linked below, and CCC Library will email you the article in a couple days.
A multidisciplinary collection of on-demand videos, including subject areas like anthropology, business, counseling, health, history, music, and more. Make video clips and build playlists.
FoD offers thousands of streaming videos online. It's like an academic version of your favorite streaming service. Subjects include art, biology, careers & job searching, criminal justice, CTE, history, mathematics, science, technology, and world languages.
Perform your initial search with the one keyword (or keyword phrase) that describes your most important topic idea.
We recommend as you start your research, start big and broad! Use your first few searches to test out how much information is available on your topic.
The short answer is because of artificial intelligence (AI).
The long answer is because nearly all databases use AI in their search algorithms, and that algorithm includes looking for related keywords automatically. Quotation marks typically override this automatic related-words search.
Skim article titles, abstracts, and subjects (highlighted with labels) listed in your search results.
In this example, an additional (and maybe better) keyword is Generation Alpha.
To find the most relevant and useful results, you will want to perform multiple searches using different keywords.
This process is called "iterative searching." Good research is iterative, meaning it is a circular process where you repeat steps more than once and improve upon what you have done before. Changing up your keywords is part of this process.
Different keywords bring back different kinds of results for different kinds of readers.
Find more relevant information by adding in keywords that target specific aspects of your topic.
For precision searching. Quotation marks restrict the database to finding results containing keywords in the exact order as written, which means the precise context you need is reflected in the search results.
For precision searching. AND commands the database to find search results containing keyword #1 AND keyword #2.
We can change that! There are a couple reasons why you might get zero, or very few, results:
We can change that!
Add in additional keywords that target specific aspects of your topic.
Databases have built-in tools to help you filter through your search results to identify the best resources. Most database results pages offer the following tools:
Talk to a librarian about using built-in tools to help make your research process easier and more efficient.