Begin Research: Database Basics
- About This Course Toggle Dropdown
-
Begin Research
Toggle Dropdown
- How Much Do You Already Know?
- Read Your Assignment Carefully
- Understand Your Assignment
- Pick a Good Topic
- Too Broad, Too Narrow, or Just Right?
- Identify Potential Ideas
- Customize Your Topic
- Turn Your Topic into a Question
- What’s Your Angle?
- Find Your Search Terms
- Putting it All Together
- Dive Into a Sea of Resources!
- What Do You Know?
- Matching Resources to Your Information Need
- Quiz: What Have You Learned?
-
Knowledge Cycle
Toggle Dropdown
- How Much Do You Already Know?
- A Timeline of Information
- Minutes to Hours After the Event
- Days to Weeks After
- Months to Years After
- …And More Years
- A Cycle of Revolving Research
- Quick Check
- Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- Tertiary Sources
- Check Your Understanding
- Timeline for Producing Scholarly Information
- Research and Information for Different Disciplines
- Quiz: What Have You Learned?
-
Library Basics
Toggle Dropdown
- Do you know the answer?
- What Do Librarians and Library Staff Do?
- What is the Most Important Job of the HCC Librarians?
- How Can I Get Help From a Librarian?
- Where are the HCC libraries?
- When are the HCC Libraries Open?
- Guidelines for Using HCC Library Materials
- Do I Need A Library Card in Order to Use Library Resources?
- What Can I Do With My HCC Student ID Card?
- How Do I Login and Use My Library Account?
- Requesting Books at the HCC Libraries
- Find, Checkout, and Renew Your HCC Library Books
- Why Do I Need a Call Number?
- How Many Books Can I Check Out?
- Do the HCC Libraries Have eBooks?
- Find Course Reserves
- How Can I Find HCC Library Resources and Services?
- Where Do I Find the HCC Library Homepage?
- How Do I Use the Library Homepage?
-
Discovery Tools
Toggle Dropdown
- Where Can I Find Them?
- Start With the HCC Library Homepage
- What is ELS?
- What Can I Find With ELS?
- How Do I Search ELS?
- Can I Save My ELS Search Results?
- The HCC Library Catalog
- How Much Do You Already Know?
- What Can I Find in the Library Catalog?
- What Won't I Find in a Library Catalog?
- Fact Check
- How to Search the HCC Library Catalog
- Understand Your Catalog Search Results
- How Do I Find More Books on the Same Topic?
- Subject Search, Step #1
- Subject Search, Step #2
- How Do I Find Articles?
- How Much Do You Already Know?
- Database Basics
- How Do I Find the HCC Library Databases?
- How Do I Choose a Database?
- Fact Check
- How Do I Search in a Database?
- HCC Library Databases A to Z
- ELS, Catalog, or Database Lists?
- What are Library & Research Guides?
- What Kinds of Resources?
- Find and Use Library & Research Guides For Your Research
- What's the Buzz Around Open Access Resources?
- How Do I Find the Best Open Access Resources?
-
Expert Searches
Toggle Dropdown
- Search By Subject Headings!
- Differences Between Subject and Keyword Searches
- Combining Subject and Keyword Searches
- Self-Check
- Find it by Field Searching!
- Field Searching vs. Keyword Searching
- Self-Check
- Use a Boolean!
- Boolean Logic
- Combining Boolean Operators
- Self-Check
- Try Truncation
- Using Truncation
- Using Internal Truncation
- Avoid Truncation Overload!
- Know Your Limits
- Why Sort?
- Limiting in Action!
- Refining Database Searches
- Quiz: What Have You Learned?
-
Make Citations
Toggle Dropdown
- How Much Do You Already Know?
- Why Is It Important That I Cite My Sources Accurately?
- What Is the Basic Bibliographic Information Required for a Book Citation?
- Find The Bibliographic Information You Need to Cite A Book
- What Bibliographic Information is Required for a Book Chapter Citation?
- What Is the Basic Bibliographic Information Required for a Journal Article Citation?
- Find The Bibliographic Information You Need To Cite An Article
- My Professor Says I Have To Use MLA Format For My Works Cited List.
- What If I'm Using An Electronic Copy Of A Book Or An Article?
- What Do These Citations Look Like?
- What If I Can’t Find An Author?
- But most of my sources are blogs, YouTube videos, and public websites.
- Can Media Ever Be Used For Scholarly Research?
- Locate The Bibliographic Information
- Locate The Bibliographic Information
- Practice With Citations
- What’s Missing?
- Are There Tools To Help Me With Citations?
- Quiz: Test Yourself
Database Basics
Databases are library tools that help you locate articles, books, and media on a particular topic or by a specific author. For an in-depth mini-course on using the HCC Library databases check out this webinar, which was recently recorded live.
Databases
- Contain scholarly articles
- Contain abstracts of articles
- Can contain millions of articles
- Can be called periodical or article indexes
- Contain citation information needed for bibliographies
- Can contain media, books, statistics, and more
- Last Updated: May 22, 2019 2:13 PM
- URL: https://library.hccs.edu/brtutorial
- Print Page
About Us
Locations & Hours
Librarians
Guidelines for Use
Did we help?
Tools
Zotero
OWL at Purdue
EasyBib
Citation Machine
-
Statistics
Library Statistics
Collection Statistics
Usage Statistics
Survey Results
Follow us
Report
Report a Problem
Comments/Suggestions
©2020 Houston Community College Libraries