Before conducting a search, check and see if the online periodical database has an option to limit your search to scholarly or "peer reviewed"** publications. For example, there may be a box you can check that says "peer reviewed." While this is a good first step, you should be aware that each online database provider (e.g. EBSCOhost) may have different definitions of "peer reviewed."
This term generally refers to a publication that contains only articles that have been reviewed, (qualified) edited and selected by recognized experts in the particular field of study covered by the journal.
Natural Gas analysis of energy consumption at an institution. Design an appropriate system by looking at a natural gas manufacturer in Canada system and services.
Before entering keywords in the search box, it is useful to write down several words that best describe your research topic. Use a thesaurus if necessary to generate more words.
Descriptive words can then be connected by using words such as AND and OR to form meaningful search statements.
Connecting Words/Boolean Logic
AND Narrows a search by joining keywords so to find articles and other documents that contain both of the keywords (e.g. communication AND downsize).
OR Broadens a search. Will find articles that contain at least one of these keywords (e.g. downsize OR layoff).
NOT Narrows a search by excluding a term. NOT connector will find articles that contain the first keyword but not the second keyword (e.g. web NOT Internet).
Quotation marks are used to search keywords that are a complete phrase (e.g. "public relations").
Keywords within parentheses will be searched as a single unit within the search statement e.g. communication AND (downsize OR layoff)
When a keyword is truncated, the ending of the word is removed and replaced with a truncation symbol, usually an asterisk (*). A truncated keyword search will find articles with all instances of the root word and the root word combined with any possible ending (e.g. Canad* - this will find Canada or Canadian)