USAFA Library Guides: A Crash Course in Lit Reviews for Engineering: Finding Literature

Selecting and Using Keywords

Using Boolean Operators when searching will give you better, and more accurate, results.

AND- Retrieves articles that contain all of the search terms and narrows down the results. It is best to keep all of your ANDs on separate, vertical lines, and not mix your ANDs and ORs.
OR- Retrieves articles with any of the terms and broadens the search. It is best to keep your ORs horizontal with one line per concept.
NOT- Eliminates articles containing the second term which narrows the search.
Using Boolean logic and keywords are essential when searching library databases.

A-Z Listing of Library Databases
If you already know the name of your database, you may find it by name here.
Research Guides
Consult the library's research guide in your discipline or area of study to find librarian-recommended databases, reference resources, and web sites in your field.

Engineering Village This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive engineering platform curated for engineers, from peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings to standards and reliable data to learn from the findings of leading engineers worldwide.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science Core collections indexes journals, books and conference proceedings in the life sciences, physical sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Search the full citation network of major journal indexes as well as perform cited reference searches to find the articles that cite a person's work.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
If you need a book or an article that is not available at USAFA, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan for free of charge. Books take approximately 3 weeks while articles may come to your ILL account electronically within 48 hours.
WorldCat
To identify books and other materials on your topic that USAFA doesn't own, try searching WorldCat, a catalog of materials at universities, community colleges, public libraries, and other library agencies throughout the United States and internationally.