Once you've brainstormed a topic and keywords, you can begin your search in the McGill library catalogue and in relevant article databases.
McGill has one library catalogue: WorldCat
Here are some basic search tricks for the catalogues and all databases:
Truncation symbol:
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*
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e.g. histor? will retrieve catalogue records containing the words history, histories, historical, etc.
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Phrase searching:
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"___"
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e.g. "New Brunswick" will retrieve only catalogue records containing the entire phrase New Brunswick
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Boolean operators:
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(), AND, OR, NOT
default: AND
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e.g. history AND (Canada OR "United States") will retrieve catalogue records containing the word history plus either Canada OR the phrase United States. Remember: AND will make your search narrower and OR will make your search wider.
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