CJS 451 Hall: Finding Books and Ebooks
Search Suggestions
For each topic/research question, you will need to do 2 searches. One with "United States" as one of your keywords, and the other with your country. For example:
prison reform AND United States
prison reform AND China
Remember that it is not likely you will find sources that make the comparisons for you. You will need to research the topic for each country and then make the comparisons for yourself in your paper.
Find Books and Ebooks
Miami University Online Catalog
Search By: Keyword
Limit By: General Topic and Where The Item is Located
Look For: Call Number, Location, and Availability
Request Item from other MU Libraries
Click on the title of an item to find out more information about that item and to get the citation for that item. To find the citation, click on the icon that looks like a yellow piece of paper and says "Cite" when you hover over it. Then find the APA citation, and you can highlight, copy, and paste that into your references page. Always be sure to double-check your copied citations, though. Sometimes formatting, such as italics and hanging indents, aren’t correct. Information is typically in the correct order, but good to double-check that as well.
Change Date Range: by sliding the rule under "Publication Date" or by typing in specific years in the boxes. (red box in screenshot) Your results list will then only include items that were published within your specified date range.
Get Only Ebooks: In the left-hand column, click on the arrow next to "Material Type" and then check the box next to "Electronic Resources". (red arrow in screenshot)
Continue Searching in OhioLINK for unavailable titles. OhioLINK allows you to request books from college and university libraries all over the state of Ohio.
Search Tips
“And”, “Or”, “Not” (Boolean Operators): Use the words to narrow or expand your search results. For Example:
- “automobiles” AND “accidents” will return results that contain BOTH of the terms.
- “juvenile” OR “adolescent” OR “teenager” will return results that contain at least one of the terms. Useful for words with similar meanings.
- “cinderella” NOT “rock band” will return results that do NOT include the 1980’s rock band, Cinderella.
Use an * at the end of a root word to find all variations of that word. For example, “child*” will search for “child,” “children,” “childhood,” and “children's.”
Brainstorm words or concepts that are similar in meaning and use those as search terms. If you find a good resource, look at the “Subject Headings” or “Descriptors” listed and use those as additional search terms.
Bibliographies/References/Works Cited pages are great ways to find additional resources. You can search the library’s Catalogs and/or Databases.
Tutorials and Videos
Choosing and Using Keywords (tutorial)
Refining Search Results (video)
Evaluating Information (tutorial)