In this approach you search across various databases. It is good for searching multidisciplinary topics. The success of your search rests on a careful statement of your topic. Define your topic in a sentence or question. Example: How are political attitudes developing over a lifespan? Select now the keywords/concepts: "political attitudes" lifespan
Start on the library homepage at http://lib.sxu.edu/home
Select the tab Find Articles from the search box.
Type keywords for your topic. Avoid broadly defined words or stop words.
For more focus and relevant results search by phrases in quotation marks, e.g., "political attitudes"
On the results page you can now limit your search to peer-reviewed articles (that will also mean scholarly)
For best results start with the PsycInfo database. The database classifies articles by methodology that can be selected from the search menu.
In this approach you select a database from a list of our databases and search for your topic. Searching a specific database, e.g., PsycInfo allows for more targeted search with other options to limit the results to specific types of articles, e.g., empirical studies.
Start on the library homepage at http://lib.sxu.edu/home
Select the link Databases (by subject and A-Z)
All databases are available here. You will need to login with your NetId and password.
These short videos will explain the basics of searching for journal articles:
Start your search in the Central Index for broad interdisciplinary searching.
Helpful 3 minute tutorials from EBSCO on Basic Search and Advanced Search (taking advantage of Thesaurus and Index searching)
Look for the 
icon or the Full Text Finder option. If the article is not available in full-text, click on Request through interlibrary loan link.
The following few rules of online searching are universal. They apply to all databases and search engines, e.g., Google or Yahoo, whenever the search is by keywords.
The ability to search by creating a search strategy that goes beyond a single keyword or two will dramatically improve the relevancy and focus of your results.
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