How can I find articles in the databases?

COS students, faculty and staff have access to the library's academic databases which have articles from a variety of sources. These articles are the same as those found in printed magazines, newspapers, or journals, just in electronic form stored within databases. To access any of the COS library databases from a place other than on a COS campus, you must log in using your MyGiant login information.

To search for articles within a database, choose a database to search. Depending on the database, you may have just a basic search bar or it will already have advanced search options showing. To do a search within these databases, you need to use certain keywords or phrases. The database takes those keywords and searches for them anywhere in an article where your keyword or keywords are mentioned. If it finds that keyword or word within an article, it will add it to the list of results. Depending on the keywords you use, however, you may get either too many results that don't have anything to do with your topic or not enough results.

Tips for Refining Your Search Results

• Use the advanced search option in the databases.
• Use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) in between keywords or phrases.
  • Use Boolean AND to combine keywords or phrases, telling the database to show results only if both keywords are present. Ex. "animal rights" AND "cosmetics industry"
  • Use Boolean OR between keywords or phrases to broaden your search, telling the database you want all articles with either one or the other. Ex. cyberbullying OR "social media bullying"
  • Use Boolean NOT for when you want it to ignore a keyword and give the results for one keyword but not if it also includes the other. Ex. "distance education" NOT COVID-19
• Use limiters to refine your results. Limiters include limiting to articles published within certain time frame, peer-reviewed articles, articles from academic journals, and so on.
• Choose a different database, if not limited to a specific one. Consider searching in multi-subject databases, databases that cover multiple different subjects.
• Review the keywords and combinations used. Try different or similar keywords in your search.

If you need help with the databases or more help on how to do a search, you can contact a Librarian.