Research assignments in Core or Writing vary, for example some instructors may ask you to find one article to analyze, or they may ask for several articles to support your argument in a research paper.

Make sure you understand what type of sources they are asking for, because that will determine which database will be a good one to find that type of information. The table at the end of this page provides additional links to databases that have been organized by type.

A great database to get started with is Academic Search Complete. It covers journal articles, magazine articles and a small number of newspaper articles. It will be the best database for a Writing 2 or Core 80B class. If you need to expand beyond the areas covered by this database see the table at the end for more options.

Click below to start the tutorial (Note, the tutorial includes a final quiz. Once you complete it, you will be able to print out the results to hand in to your professor)

Academic Search Complete Tutorial 

Make sure you can access it where ever you are. As a UCSC student, you have the privilege of using UCSC library databases without paying fee or entering a database login/password. When you're on campus, getting into a database is seemless: once you find the link to the right database from the library webpage you can start searching right away. When you are off campus go to the Off Campus Access Page if you need help logging in.

• Make sure you know where to find the databases.
• Make sure you know how to use UC-eLinks
• Make sure you're making use of the database search features.

See a review of Keyword searching in this Youtube video (select cc for closed caption option):

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  Displays in databases that only describe the sources (these usually only include citations and abstracts). Use it to find links to the full item or request it through interlibrary loan.