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MESA Teachers' Research Guide

Engineering Librarian & CAPLA Liaison

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Paula C Johnson
Contact:
Main Library A403
520-621-9862

Search Engines

Base is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 content providers. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.

Celebrating Dr. Ildaura Murillo-Rohde and  Google Scholar

Use these free web search engines to locate scholarly literature and web content.  In Google Scholar, look for the PDF link to the right of the document, if full-text is available. 

Need help distinguishing between popular and scholarly sources?  Use this Popular vs. Scholarly tutorial to learn more. 


The following videos can help you become a more efficient user of Google and Google Scholar:

Google Tutorial

Google Scholar tutorial

Arizona State Library Databases

Database Examples

Databases are commercial products that bundle a variety of resources into a single, easily searchable interface. Database contents are primarily articles from scholarly journals, but include popular magazine and newspaper articles, and audio visual materials as well.

A results page for "mechanical engineering" in Gale Academic Onefile:

Advanced search options make it easier to find specific resources. 

*Notice the Search Tips and the Search Limiters at the bottom of the Advanced Search - these are Boolean Operators and special characters that improve your search.


Use the following video to help you learn more about narrowing your topics in a Gale database:

Gale Topic Finder

Use this resource guide (PDF) from Gale for more in-depth instructions for searching content in databases.

Free Databases

The state of Arizona provides free access to Arizona residents to several that may be used in STEM research. You will access these databases by entering your zip code.

  • Academic OneFile  Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning.
  • General OneFile   This Gale general interest database includes reference, newspaper, audio content that complements the resource's robust collection of magazines and journals.
  • Science in Context   Includes national and global publications as well as 200+ experiments, projects, and top reference content
  • Gale in Context High School   170 topics from "addiction" to "Zika Virus"