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ScienceDirect is a multi-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal article database covering research in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and humanities.
1. At the ScienceDirect homepage, key in your search statement in the box, or click on Advanced Search. You need to use Boolean search techniques in order to get relevant search results in ScienceDirect. Unsure about how to use Boolean? Check out this interactive game.
2. If you've selected Advanced Search, key in your search statement as shown below.
3. At the results page, use the filters on the left to refine your search results if necessary. For scientific research topics, currency is important so make use of the publication date filter!
Click on the article title you wish to view.
4. At the article page, you can read the full text or click on the download button to save the article as a PDF.
Once you've found an article relevant to your topic, make use of the Recommended Articles, Citing Articles and References to leapfrog to more articles from the same topic.
Recommended Articles and Citing Articles can be found at the top right of the article page. Recommended articles are articles available in ScienceDirect of a similar topic area.Citing articles refer to other articles which have listed the article you've found, in their reference list. You can tell if the article or research is more impactful in its field, if it has been cited many times.
Don't forget to check out the References listed at the bottom of the article! As the author has cited these articles in his/her paper, they would generally be of the same topic area.
Some articles can be accessed through ScienceDirect - for these, you will see a Download PDF button. For articles not found in ScienceDirect, click on the Google Scholar link to do a search in Google Scholar.
Not all the articles listed under Citing articles or References section may be accessible. You can use the Document Delivery Service if you found an article which Library does not have access to. Click here to access the form for staff or student.
ScienceDirect has both Review as well as Research articles.
Original research articles are usually written by the people who conducted the research.
Review articles are summaries of current research on a certain topic. Reading a review article is an excellent way to find out more about a topic.
Use the filters to narrow your results to choice of article type.
ScienceDirect allows you to easily export articles to Mendeley. Sign up for a free Mendeley account to keep track of your research and easily generate the citations in your reference list.
