1. Use AND to look for two terms at the same time: Woolf AND criticism--will locate resources containing both terms.
2. Use OR to search for closely related terms: Gender OR Woman will look for both, but they do not have to be present in the same resource (this gives you more options)
3. Use * in or at the end of a word that may vary: Instead of woman use wom*n (this will include woman and women) or nation* (which would look up national, nationality, nationhood, and nationalism!).
4.Use quotes when looking for a phrase: "women writers" or "national identity"
5. Before searching, make a general list of synonyms for your search terms that you can substitute if the first ones do not get you results.
6. For most databases, start with a simple search, using 2 or 3 terms.
7 "Don't invent the wheel if someone hands you the keys to a Porshe!"--Rely on the subject headings from an indexed article or the bibliography or work cited page from an article or book to find other sources.
These sites may have older children's literature full text online.
