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Recent Important Supreme Court Cases: Search Strategy

Skyline Library Databases

Search Preparation:

Develop a focused topic or research question. (Not too broad, not too specific.)

Divide the topic into concepts:

Examples:

1. How did Affirmative Action affect minority students college acceptance rate?

  • Affirmative Action
  • minority students
  • college acceptance

2. Does Voting Rights affect election results?

  • voting rights
  • election

Searching Databases with Ebooks, Journal and Magazine Articles

 (To log into our databases off-campus you'll need to use your email or Canvas login.)
Click on the OneSearch icon for the search entry box  page to find a wide range of articles from academic journals, popular magazines, newspapers and reference sources, e-books & other documents, plus print books available in the library.

  • Click the “Search” icon  to begin a search.
  • To search for more than one "concept", click on Advanced Search next to the Search box in next page.
  • In the first search box, type the search word(s) for the first concept related to your topic. Type an OR between synonymous words for the same concept, e.g. paleo OR caveman. Use an * to search for multiple words from the same root, e.g. paleo* will find articles with the words: paleo or paleodiet. Use quote marks (“ ”) around search phrases (multiple words that should be searched together), e.g. “child development.”
  • In the second search box, type the search word(s) for the second concept related to your topic.
  • Click on the menu dropdown arrow next to "Keyword" on the right of the search boxes and select "SU (Subject)."
  • When the results page is displayed, click on an article title to see detailed information and a summary of the article.
     
     
     

Google Scholar

Google’s academic search engine accesses a wide range of academic articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, and universities. The majority of sources retrieved by Google Scholar are usually abstracts (summaries) of articles, which do not provide the full-text of the article (or a significant charge is required for the full article). 

Try the following search in Google Scholar: 

drought OR "water shortage" "food supply" OR "food production"

Google Scholar Search