BIOL2220: Organisms and their Relationships: Finding Information

This search box will look through most of the library's collection, including all physical books and most e-books, articles, videos, etc.

At the results page, use the limiters and facets to the left to narrow your search. Consider limiting to books (which includes e-books) to find in-depth authoritative sources on your topic.

For more search tips, check the developing a search strategy section on this guide.

Google Tips and Tricks

• Add site:.ca to search for Canadian content. This works for other domains too, such as .gc.ca for Canadian government or.edu for colleges and universities.
• Add type: to search for a specific file type. A good strategy is to include type:pdf to limit to PDFs (or sites with PDFs) as you're more likely to find published and/or authoritative sources.
• Use after: or before: to limit to dates. For example, after:2020 will search for websites with a published date of 2021-present.
• Use the minus sign (-) in place of NOT to remove results with a certain word.
• Like in Library Search, use Quotes (" ") to find phrases, such as "Southern Alberta Institute of Technology" or "Repetitive Strain Injury". 
• Use the Advanced Search. The Advanced Search will make it easier to break up your concepts and search strategically. It will also allow you to automatically include some of the above search limiters.
• Evaluate critically. Be careful about using any result you find online, as there may be bias, issues with credibility, and sometimes just downright lies. Evaluate your information using RADAR.

Tip: You may also want to search in Google Scholar which contains citations to a vast majority of academic articles.

Not all sources are included in the Library's search box, and for some topics, the results may be overwhelming. You may want to go to a subject specific e-resource. Here are some suggestions:

Can't get access to an article from a journal we don't subscribe to? Want to read a book you saw mentioned somewhere else? Request materials through interlibrary loan.