Research Guides: Biology: Search Tips

Discover Fintel (The library's search tool) & Most Databases

Define your primary concepts
In the search box enter your subject terms a few at a time
Use limiters (usually found on the left sidebar) to narrow to peer reviewed articles (for scientific research in particular), full text online, and/or other subjects (see the next two slides for examples)
Use “ quotation marks” for specific phrases
Use the * asterisk as a wildcard when the search term may have derivations. For example gen* would yield results for gene, genes, genome.
You can use the boolean operators such as NOT to exclude citations with certain words. For example: "human gen*" (NOT generation OR genetics)
Click the image below to see the results in real time!

Google	Google Scholar
Gives you millions of results all mixed in	Still gives you lots of results
Does not limit your results to articles and citations	Specifically targets results to books, article citations, and patent information
Does not show whether Fintel provides access to the resource	Enables selection of libraries for displaying in result sets. You can make this change in settings.
Has advance search feature	Has advance search feature
Click the image to see the difference!	Click the image to see the difference!