OPTIMIZING YOUR SEARCH FOR BOOKS/BOOK CHAPTERS

HOLLIS

• limit your search results to  and lock your filter (so it persists during your entire HOLLIS​ search session; limit by resource type to books;  limit by date if your results are too big (10 years? 20 years?)

SCHOLARLY JOURNALS and RESEARCH ARTICLES

These specific databases are particularly relevant to Essay 3 and we recommend you start here:

• ​HOLLIS: limit your search to 

• Academic Search Premier (multidisciplinary mix of scholarly journals, news and magazines; excellent for lots of research situations. Add it to your research repertoire!)

• Google Scholar  (multidisciplinary; good option when full-text searching is your strategy; also good for following citation trails forward in time.)​    PRO-TIP:   CHANGE SETTINGS FOR HARVARD ACCESS

If you feel like exploring further or going deeper, we recommend, as next steps:

• Environment Index (mix of scholarly articles and related news)
• Web of Science (science, social science, and humanities article citations and bibliographies)
• Social Science Premium Collection (will pick up sociological, political, policy perspectives)

GENERAL WEB SEARCHING TIPS

Google Advanced Search: 

Use Google more effectively from this screen, which offers you more nuanced options than the more familiar single box Google search page. 

 PRO TIP:  searching by domains can be a useful way to focus if you're looking for environmental publications publishd by federal or state agencies or by organizations. Examples:

.org

A good option when you want to search for non-profit publications and reports (as well as the transcripts from non-profit radio and TV broadcasts).

.mil

Will limit to publications that are produced by military/defense department agencies -- which are often invested in issues related to environment.

.gov

Publications of the US federal government

mass.gov 

State-level studies and information produced/published by the  Commonwealth

ma.us

 Municipal and city publications and information