Searching for information is easy, getting the results you need is not. You need scholarly information for a research project and your not sure your Google searches are finding the right kind of information. The D’Youville library databases seem like a logical next step, but where do you go with a shortage of time and an abundance of choices?
Below we present 5 reasons why you might want to start your research projects with the D’Youville library search tool – D’YouSearch
1. Save some money
Finding quality information on the internet is not always easy. You read the abstract to an article that is exactly what you need and then you click on the full text to find out the full text costs $30. Many of the higher quality academic journals charge for access – they have families to feed. Luckily the library has paid for access to these journals so everybody is happy (and well fed).
D’YouSearch is a quick and easy way to find out if we have the full text of an article. The default search setting is for full text, so every journal article that you see in your search results should have a link to full text. Don’t pay for that article without taking a look in D’YouSearch, you have other bills you need to pay.
2. Easily find scholarly articles
The days of using any old web page for your research, like you did in high school, are no longer. College level research papers usually require citations from higher quality research publications. This often limits you to the dreaded “Peer Reviewed” journals.
There are a few methods for determining if your citations have come from a “peer reviewed” journal.
One way is to head over to a periodical directory and look up each of the publications you have found to see if they have been listed as a peer reviewed journal. This method might seem like a second research project for you, so it is not ideal. You might try to save some time and just submit what you have found, leaving it up to your professor to make a determination. This is a great method for saving time, but you are gambling with your grades using this approach.
The simple solution is D’YouSearch. Just click on the “peer review” filter next to your search results and instantaneously create a list of articles that all come from scholarly resources. Stay in your professor’s good graces and save yourself some time.
3. Time Saving citations
This is a must for papers that you are writing in college. Letting people know where your ideas came from makes your arguments more credible, but it is also helpful for others looking for similar information. Learning citation formats is important, but it is also time consuming to manually put together every citation for your paper.
D’YouSearch is here to help. It provides a citation for every search result in several of the most popular citation styles. APA, MLA , AMA or several others, all available at the click of a button. Citations can be copied and pasted directly into your paper. They can also be exported to your favorite citation management software for those working on more advanced research projects.
4. Less searching by saving searches
Knowing what you have already searched can help save you time in future searches.
To paraphrase a popular saying “those who do not remember their searches are bound to repeat them”. Did you ever have the feeling that you have seen all these articles somewhere before? You may be repeating something that you have already done but in many databases and internet searches there is no way to be sure what you have searched.
Conversely it seems that when you want to reproduce some great search that you have done before to review unsaved articles you almost certainly won’t be able to do it. D’YouSearch allows you to create and account for saving each of your searches. You can revive any of your saved searches by clicking on it. You can also set up search alerts so you can be notified when new results are published.
Let the D’YouSearch do some of the work for you!
5. Leads to more information
D’Yousearch is a great place to start your searches but it doesn’t have everything in our collection. It also does not have the most sophisticated search filters for narrowing your searches down to that perfect set of results. You might need to try one of our more discipline specific databases.
With a selection of over 90 databases, it can be hard to know where to search next. D’YouSearch can help with that too. D’YouSearch contains information from dozens of databases.
Take at look a the “Databases” filter in the left hand column to see where your search results have come from and then go directly into that database for your next search. We don’t have every database listed in the “Databases” filter, but we have many of the most popular ones.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the reasons why you should start your research in D’YouSearch. It is just as easy to use as Google, and even easier to find high quality, academic research. Give it a try for your next research project, you might be surprised.
