Just below the Nimitz Search you'll see multiple icons. Select the Database icon, third in line, to see an A-Z list of databases.
From the A-Z List you can access your chosen database in several ways. On left side there is a dropdown menu by Subject. You can search alphabetically, here selecting the J option, or search by name. The search bar will work with partial names as well as exact searches.
Let's say we are researching naval strategy and international relations regarding the South China Sea. When searching a database, we are not going to get good results with a full sentence. We need to break it down into keywords, which are the most important words or phrases.
A good rule of thumb is to start with one or two at a time before adding more to your search. If we start with too many and get no results, how do we tell which one was the problem? So here we will begin with naval strategy and South China Sea.
You can click on the image to open it bigger in another tab.
Over 21,000 results is pretty overwhelming! Since we now know there are results on this topic, let's try adding a third keyword to narrow the results a bit. To change our search we can click on that "Modify Search" option to the right side of the screen.
Adding the keyword with the AND option tells the database to only bring back results if it has each one of those keywords present, and it should drop the number of results we see.
Maybe there are some good articles here, but 16,000 results is still too many to be able to sift through, so we may want to consider narrowing our search a bit. We could try adding another keyword, but we can also try changing our keywords, or using some filters (which we'll talk about later).
For now, we'll try changing our keywords.
Making incremental changes is a good approach. Remember, if we do too many things at once we can't tell which ones worked or not.
Here, all we have done is added quotation marks around "naval strategy". This tells the database that we want that exact phrase. There are a lot of different scenarios that those words might be in close proximity, but we want the exact phrase for this search. Quotation marks will do that.
It definitely drops our number of results down, but let's say we wanted to change things further.
For brevity's sake in this tutorial let's skip a couple of tweaks ahead. Here we have swapped out international relations for a more narrow keyword, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), which is a specific instance of international relations.
We have also chosen the more broad China for South China Sea. Knowing that many of the results surrounding China and ASEAN and the naval strategy would include the South China Sea kept the results from being too narrow while still allowing us to focus on one specific aspect of our topic.
We know have a small enough number of results to look through all of them. Not all searches in JSTOR can, or need to, results in such a small number. However, doing multiple searches that are more focused, rather than one large broad search, is likely to be less frustrating and save time in the long run.
If you are happy with your keywords, you can utilize the filters to narrow results further. The first couple are shown here: limiting by the source type (book chapters, scholarly article, primary sources, etc.) and publication date.
When you have results you are ready to look through, just click on the title to see full text, more information about the item, and ways to download and cite.
Make sure to download your article so that you can keep it for later. Every search in JSTOR is unique and thus it is wise to save it as soon as you decide on using the article. If you hit citation you can also see how to properly format the chosen result for your paper.
When searching a library database, you can’t just type a whole sentence into a search bar and get good results. Here is how to break your topic down into a better searching strategy: keywords. You start with a research question or topic, identify the most important parts, and then generate some alternate ways of talking about each keyword.
How does media affect voting habits in younger generations?
Pull out the most important parts. You are aiming for 3-4 keywords or phrases from your topic. For the question above it would look like this:
How does media affect voting habits in younger generations?
Now brainstorm other ways to think about each one of those keywords from Step 2. Those keywords can be synonyms, broader versions of your keywords, or narrower versions of your keywords. For the research question above it might look like this:
| Media | Voting | Younger Generations |
|---|---|---|
| Television | Campaigns |
College Students |
| News shows | Political campaigns | Undergraduates |
| Social media | Campaign advertisements | Youth |
| Elections | Young adults | |
| Tiktok | Civic engagement | Gen Z |
| Social networking | Polls | 18-24 year olds |
| teenagers |
You never know which one will be best for a particular database or website until you start looking! So, you want to have some options to choose from. You may also find more keywords to try within the sources you find as you search.
Filters: Filters give you the ability to narrow down your search results into more manageable pieces. They also give you the ability to make sure you are reading what you want to read. For example, if you know that you want a peer reviewed academic journal article on dramaturgy from 2000-2004, you are able to place those filters so that you can do that.
Knowledge Check: What should you do after you put in your keywords and get to the results page? Put in filters, subject, and dates!
Selecting an article: Selecting an article takes time, and the best way to do this and evaluate the article that piques your interest also takes time. When you land on an article that you think you want to use, make sure you look up the author's biography, see the source where the article is coming from, and see if the abstract is aligned with what you want from your research. If the source is coming from an academic journal and the author has published work many times, there is a good chance that what you are reading is reputable and accurate.
Follow these steps to ensure you properly save your document!
Stable URL: Click on the permalink button to ensure that you can easily access this article after you leave the site. Every search in this database is unique, and thus if you do not save the link you will not be able to access it.
References: Read through your papers references to see if you can find more materials that will better help your research.
Download: Alternatively, download your resource to your computer/device so that you can keep it and will not lose it.
Cite: Use the link in the database to see how you can format your citations, and copy and paste it over to your research. Be sure to make sure that its properly formatted after you copy and paste it. For more information on citation, see our Citations Research Guide.
Knowledge check: What do you do after you select the document you would like to read?