Background Information Resources
- CQ Researcher Plus ArchiveA database of in-depth, authoritative reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time.
- Literati by CredoCredo Reference is a general reference solution for learners and librarians. Offering 551 hundred highly-regarded titles from over 70 publishers; Credo General Reference covers every major subject. Credo Reference is an online reference service made up of full-text books from the world's best publishers. Whether you're working on a research paper, trying to win trivia or just curious, Credo Reference has something for you.
Searching using Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are simple words that are used while searching databases. These operators are used to either include or exclude particular keywords in searches. Utilizing these phrases helps make your search more specific and helps eliminate results that are not relevant to your research goals.
Discovery
Discovery is a good starting point when beginning your research. The discovery tab is the default function of the search box on the LSU Libraries Homepage. An image of the Discovery box is seen below.
The Discovery function searches many databases, journals, news sources, and book titles for relevant results pertaining to your research topic. these results can be limited in various ways such as source type, date, full text, and relevancy. It should be noted, that the Discovery function may miss some relevant resources for your research. You should further your research, by utilizing specific databases that are tailored to your specific subject matter.
Advanced Searching Strategies
Truncation and Wildcards
The advanced search feature allows you to refine your search with filters and other options.
You should also learn how to search using truncation and wildcards.
Truncation allows you to search for terms with various endings.For example, searching libr* would pull up results for library, libraries, librarian, librarians, etc.
Wildcards let you search for terms with unknown characters or multiple spellings. For example, searching wom?n would pull up results for woman, women, womxn, etc.
The symbols used for wildcards and truncation vary from database to database, but the Help section of each database will let you know which symbols to use.