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Find articles on a topic
Core databases:
- Compendex - comprehensive, interdisciplinary engineering database; can also select to search GEOBASE (earth sciences database) at the same time
- Search tips for Compendex/GEOBASE:
- OR synonyms for an individual concept, AND different concepts
- Compendex automatically searches for variant word endings through its autostemming feature
- e.g., type controllers and it will automatically search for controllers, control, controlling, controlled, controls
- autostemming NOT applied within quotes
- alternatively, use * to search for variant word endings yourself
- turns off autostemming and is NOT applied within quotes
- use quotes to find an exact phrase, e.g., “chemical engineering”
- use NEAR/x to find search terms in any order, within x words of each other in the title or abstract, e.g., oil NEAR/3 spill will find oil spill, oil spills, spilling of chemicals and oil
- GeoRef - provides access to the geoscience literature of the world
Need more references? Other databases to explore:
- Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management
- Google Scholar – useful for finding a few relevant articles on a topic
- Search tips for Google Scholar:
- you can include synonyms for just one concept and place parentheses around your synonyms, e.g., (feasibility OR scoping OR comparative OR "order of magnitude") gold mine
- Google Scholar automatically searches for variant word endings
- Materials Research Database
- SciFinder - provides references to the chemical literature, including substance and reaction information; useful for finding the experimental properties of substances
- Scopus - multidisciplinary; includes how many times an article was cited and who cited it
- Web of Science - multidisciplinary; includes how many times an article was cited and who cited it
- Canadian Research Index – provides references to Canadian government publications at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels
- CBCA Complete - provides references to Canadian publications
Locating the complete text of references
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Look for the Find Full Text button when searching databases. Click on this button to link to our catalogue.
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Search the McGill WorldCat Catalogue to find journals or books, whether in print or electronic format.
- McGill students and staff may order articles and books that are not available at McGill using COLOMBO
