Databases are extremely useful search tools that enable you to search more effectively.

Multidiscipline Databases

• Great for searching across multiple subjects (English AND Education, Psychology AND Spanish, etc)
• Strong starting points

English Databases

• Focus primarily on literary analysis, writing pedagogy or language acquisition

Education Databases

• Focus on pedagogy and classroom management
• Primary audience is teacher practitioners

MISC Subject Databases

There are usually five things you can do with a database:

1. Search using keywords
2. Refine results (e.g., relevance, date, peer-review, subject, full-text only, etc)
3. Access a source (cilck PDF or "find it" links)
4. Email yourself the source full-text and/or citation
5. Cite a source (be sure to double check citation generators!)

More search tricks:

• Use Boolean Operators (and, or, not) to separate keywords
• Use quotation marks (" ") to search for phrases, such as "critical reading" or "into the woods"
• Use an asterisk (*) to search all variations of a word root, such as child* for child, children, and childrens
• Use an exclamation mark (!) as a wildcard, such as metamorphos!s for metamophosis and metamorphoses

GoogleScholar searches the entire web for scholarly materials.

Downsides:

• Very limited search customization and filtering.
• There is no way to refine to peer-reviewed articles.
• It will list things by mere popularity, including unpublished dissertations and reports.
• This means you must do MORE WORK to determine what type of source you're looking at and if it's useful!

Upsides:

• You can easily search for an article by title.
• Google Scholar can recognize you as a Cal State LA student so you are linked to library materials (see below)

If Google Scholar knows you are a Cal State LA student, you will see "Find it @ Cal State LA" links, pictured below.

Add Cal State LA to your institutions: