Physics Research Guide

A good place to begin your search for scholarly articles is by using the main search engine on the library's home page.  It is labeled Find Research Materials.  This search engine enables you to search most of the library's databases at one time.  Be sure to use the drop down menu and select the Articles only option if you want to limit your search to just articles.

Tips when searching for articles in our databases including the Find Research Materials search engine:

• Use search operators AND & OR to build search strategy.
  • Use OR when you want to find articles that contain one or the other of the terms: Coupled Springs OR Couple Pendulums.
  • Use AND when you want to find articles that contain all of the terms: Seismic Waves AND Rocks.
• Look at subject headings for more search term ideas
• Use the truncation character * for searching multiple spellings of a word: Collision* searches both Collision and Collisions.
• Use “ “ to search exact phrases: “Coupled Springs”
• Use drop down menus to limit your search to subject headings.  This can make your results more precise.
• If the article in not available in the library or online, use Interlibrary Loan to get it from another library.