Google Scholar


Database Description from Google:

 

"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research."

 

1) Go to Google Scholar:

http://scholar.google.com/

 

2) Enter "Detroit" in the search box.

 

3) This returns roughly 900,000 results.  This is too large a result, so you'll want to narrow it down. One way to do this is to add another search term.  In addition, you can click on the "Advanced Scholar Search" link at the top of the screen where you can limit your search by subject area, author, title, or date.  Finally, you can also click the "recent articles" tab to limit our search, but recent articles aren't always necessarily the most useful articles.

 

4) Once you have narrowed your search, scan the results and look for an appropriate article.  As always, ask yourself these questions about the sources you've found:

 

a) Where was this article published? Is the publication a scholarly one?

b) Who is the author? What credentials does he or she have? Is the author credible?

c) How long is the article? Is it long enough to be a chapter in a book?

 

5) Once you've found a suitable source, you'll now need to find that source in the Wayne State Library system.  Go to the library page: http://www.lib.wayne.edu/

 

a) If the source you've found is a book, enter the title of the book into the search box on the front page of the library website.

b) If the source you've found is an article, search the title of the article using the search box on the front page of the library website.  If the article title does not return any results, don't give up!  Try searching for the journal in which the article appears, then browse the journal's back issues to find the article you're seeking.

 

 

While this is not a library resource, you can still contact librarians if you hit a snag during your research.  Contact them either in person or electronically: 

     http://www.lib.wayne.edu/services/help/