Use the following links and databases to search for company profiles, SWOT analyses, legal cases, and literature. Type the name of the company you are looking for into the database search bar.
Use library databases to find scholarly articles. Click the 'peer reviewed' filter to narrow your search to scholarly, peer reviewed journals.
Business Source Complete covers business, management, finance, accounting, international business, and economics topics from academic journals, magazines, and trade publications dating back to 1886. Also included are current company, industry and region reports.
Tools like these help you find better search results more quickly.
Use the limiter site: to filter which websites your results are from. Add your own search terms after that.
Ask for websites that end with a certain domain name that may be more reliable or relevant.
Search an entire website from the back end with Google.
Add quotation marks around a word or phrase in a Google search to:
Find the Tools button at the top of your search results. When toggled, new options will be revealed, like the option to filter results by the date they were published. You may also choose to use the Google advanced search to get more specific!
Identify keywords for your topic and brainstorm narrower, broader, and related terms.
Example: Factors that affect academic performance in first-generation college students.
| Academic Performance | College | First-Generation Students |
| Student Success | Higher Education | Children of Immigrants |
| Student Achievement | University | Minority Students |
| Learning Outcomes | Community College | Nontraditional Students |
Boolean Operators AND, OR, and NOT allow you to broaden or narrow your results in the library catalog and databases. You can easily use these to clarify what you need by choosing the advanced search option.
Add more keywords.
Adding additional keywords to your search can help to further narrow your topic.
Example: college AND first-generation students AND academic performance
Use a filter
Look on the left side for ways you can filter your materials. Here are a few to consider, depending on your needs.
Try different search terms.
What other words could you use to describe this concept? Brainstorm related terms, synonyms, and slightly different forms of your word or phrase. Also brainstorm broader categories or concepts it belongs to, as well as narrower elements or examples. (See the keywords section above for examples.)
It may also be useful to consider the official, academic, or formal way to write that term. This is more likely to be used in academic writing.
Use fewer search terms.
Sometimes less is more! The more words, phrases, or subjects you ask the database to find, the fewer sources will meet the criteria.
Use OR.
Broaden your search by using the boolean operator OR to link your terms.
Example: (college OR higher education OR university) AND first-generation students AND (academic performance OR student success)