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Using the Library's Databases

Do you have a research assignment coming up? Start your search using one of MGCC Library's many databases! Read on to learn how:

From the main MGCC Library page, you can access our databases by clicking the Student and Faculty Online Resources link. From here, click on the Databases icon. This will allow you to search our databases by subject. Or, to view our entire list of databases, click on the red A-Z Database List link. Here, you can see all the databases we have available, as well as a brief description of each. 

Tip: Academic Search Complete and EBSCOhost are wonderful options to begin your  research!

When beginning your research within a database, make sure that your topic isn't too broad. If it's not narrow enough, you could potentially have thousands of articles to sift through. It also helps to limit your search to scholarly or peer reviewed journals to ensure that you have the most credible and relevant information possible.

You can also select any other publication type you may need, such as periodicals, books, and newspapers. It also helps to narrow the date range of your search to the last 5-10 years so that your information is up-to-date. (Your instructor may actually prefer that your sources are more recent - be sure to double check your assignment's requirements!)

To help refine your search, you can change the search fields. You can search the entire text, or search subject terms or keywords only. You can also search by author or title.

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) can also be quite helpful! For instance, if you want to research how sustainable fashion can impact the environment, you can search using AND. A search in Academic Search Complete for "sustainable fashion" AND "environment," plus narrowing to scholarly journal articles published in the last ten years, brings up three relevant and useful articles. Using the operator OR would widen your search, and NOT would remove any articles that include that search term.

Once you find an article you'd like to use for your assignment, you can see if a full text version is readily available. Typically, these will be available for PDF download.

Finally, if you don't find what you're looking for on your first search, keep trying! The information is out there. You may just need to tweak your search terms a little bit, or try different databases. Don't give up! If you get stuck at any point, feel free to ask one of our librarians, or send an email to library@mgcc.edu. We're always happy to help. :)

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