Animal & Veterinary Sciences: Finding Articles

Use a search strategy to find information more effectively by: 

Boolean Operators 

You can combine keywords using AND, OR, NOT: these are known as Boolean operators

AND gets more specific results because all the keywords must be in the same article. Some databases automatically insert AND between words, but you can put AND for yourself.  

OR allows you to search for synonyms or word variations. Often there are other words that mean the same as your keyword. OR allows you to search for these variations all at one time. Adding OR into a search will cause you to find MORE results because OR specifies that either word must appear in the article.  

NOT eliminates unwanted words. This limits the number of irrelevant articles your search retrieves. 

Source: OSLIS Secondary Videos

Truncation:  uses an asterisk (*) which lets you search for a term and its various spelling of that term. To truncate enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an (*). The database will retrieve all forms of that word.

Example 1: searching for interact* will retrieve interact, interacting,  interactive, interaction

Example 2: searching for genetic* will retrieve genetic, genetics, genetically

Wildcard is represented by a question mark (?) or a pound/harsh sign (#). To use the (?) wildcard, enter your search terms and replace each unknown character with a ?

Example 1: searching for colo?r will retrieve color, colour

Example 2: searching for f?rm will retrieve farm, firm, form

Source: bibliothecarius

EBSCOhost Discovery Service is the library's main search tool which offers a variety of results, including books, academic journal articles and more.

When searching in the library databases, you should come up with keywords for your research question. Keywords are made up of the most important concepts in your research question.

Finding articles

• Type your terms or keywords into the search bar and click "Search."

• Look for the All filters (middle top left of the screen) and check online full text. You can also apply filters according to data range, source type (academic journals, magazines, electronic resources etc.) subject and others.

Accessing Articles

Use one of the following access options in EDS

• Click Access options under the search result and look for;

• Online full text
• PDF
• Full Text Finder
• Read online
• View record from other databases

With each result page, there is a section on the right that gives you options to filter your results. You can select filters like:

• Full Text
• Peer-reviewed/scholarly*
• A specific journal
• Subject
• Location
• Publication date

Note that when searching for journal articles, your sources are most likely required to be scholarly/peer reviewed/refereed.