Research Methods

Google

Google thinks its smarter than it is, so sometimes we need to force it to do what we want.

"" (quotes) is great - Allows you to search for EXACTLY the words inside the quotes
- (dash) before a word lets you search for things that DON'T include that word
site: lets you use search a certain site or domain exention
OR lets you combine two searches

"cars that go fast" -ford site:.gov OR old cars

Very powerful tools for finding matches for images.

Lens allows you to find what the content of a picture is, from plant species to object to dog breeds
Reverse Image Search allows you to find other places the same image is found around the internet

EBSCO's basic search is pretty bad. It is just a boolean search with the words slammed together. So, we need to use the advanced search.

Start with the normal search boxes. They can:
- Search specific fields (title, abstract, content, etc)
- Boolean search with AND, OR, & NOT operators
- As many rows as you want

With this great power comes great responsibility! Be very careful and not to over-constrain the search, or you will have issues.

Literally hundreds of other options, many are self explanatory.

Search modes explain what happens between words

Boolean/Phrase = AND/OR/NOT, also supports parenthesis
Automatically puts an AND between words
Automatically puts an OR between words
Basically magic, takes as much or as little text, up to whole papers. Worth a try, but might not do what you need
Also searches using synonyms for words
Self-explanitory, only works on non-specified fields
Also sort of magic, like related words but just for nouns maybe?

More options are explained really well on the official documentation, there are literally pages and pages of more things to try.

However, remember that overconstraining is very easy to do, so be careful not to goof that up.

EBSCO lets you view your past searches, very useful for journaling and reviewing past research