Create your OpenAthens account: The way you log into our research databases has changed! To access, register for your new OpenAthens account.

To sign into Bearcat Search: Select Login using: CAS. You will be prompted to enter your MyLander user name and password.

Learn more about how to use our new system, Bearcat Search.

Use AND between keywords to narrow your search.

Example: pirates AND sea

Use OR between keywords to expand your search.

Example: (pirates OR piracy) AND (sea OR maritime)

Use NOT between keywords to exclude irrelevant results from your search.

Example: (pirates OR piracy) NOT copyright

Tip! The citations you can copy from EBSCOhost almost always have the wrong formatting, ex. capitalization. Be sure to correct those if you use them.

When choosing databases to use for your research, there are several factors to consider:

• the academic subjects covered (does your topic span outside your discipline?)
• the types of materials included (e.g. scholarly journal articles, professional reports, images of works of art, encyclopedia articles, popular magazine articles)
• the availability of full text of articles
• date range of materials covered

If you have a general topic, and are not sure where to search, it is a good idea to start in Academic Search Complete, which is a general database with some information on almost every topic.

Choosing the right database is one of the most important parts of the research process. If you are not familiar with the databases, ask a librarian for help.

Tip! Some databases include abstract-only records. These look like the other article records, but you won't see any link to read the full text. You can request the full text of articles for free.

Video from North Carolina State University Library

NCSU Libraries, 2014

Video borrowed from Western Libraries.