If you are looking to find articles for a research assignment, a good place to start is the Articles Tab on the Libraries homepage. 

The Articles tab searches a database called Summon, which covers a wide variety of topics. 

The library also has access to more discipline-specific databases and you might want to use one of those if you are doing more exhaustive research. But Summon is a good starting point.

Let's say I'm writing a paper on the forensic science of fingerprint identification.

If I type my search terms, fingerprint identification, into the search bar, Summon brings up a big set of results.

This list includes over 140,000 articles that contain the words "fingerprint" and "identification."

But if I need only a handful of really good articles, how do I pick just a few of these?

Summon has some tools to help me narrow and focus my results.

To start, let's make sure that we're looking only at results that will have the kind of sources that I want. In this case, I'm only interested in peer-reviewed, scholarly articles.

In the upper left of the screen, Summon has a link, labeled “Peer-Review.” 

Once I click that link, Summon updates my results list, focusing on articles from scholarly journals. 

But if I look more closely at the articles, I see that while many are about fingerprint identification in forensic science, quite a few are not. 

This is because Summon is  searching only for the words fingerprint and identification, which can be used in multiple contexts, not just in forensic science.

Summon has some tools to focus my results to the area of my interest. Two of these that can be very helpful are the “Discipline” and “Subject Terms” filters listed on the left hand side of the screen. 

Filtering by “Discipline” can be helpful if I need to make my search specific to a particular area of study. Since Summon doesn’t list every discipline, however, filtering by “Subject Terms” is good when I want to focus my results on a main idea that may not map neatly to a specific discipline. For the purposes of this video, then, we’re going to filter by “Subject Terms.” 

The top 5 most common terms associated with my results are listed here. To see the full list, I’ll click the “More…” link. 

I can pick out one - or a few - that match the topic I'm looking for. Here’s exactly what I’m looking for: "forensic sciences."

I can also click the red ‘x’ next to the subject terms that I specifically want to eliminate, like all those related to “DNA” or “Genetics.” 

In order to include and exclude these terms, I must remember to scroll back up to the top of the page and click the “Apply” button. 

This reduces my set of results to about 1,600 articles, all of which are related to the forensic science of fingerprint identification.

Note that Summon has other filters like ‘content type’ and ‘publication date’  that can help me further refine my results. 

But I’ve already refined enough at this point to scan my results for articles I want to use for my research.

As I glance over the list, I look for titles that seem most relevant to my topic.

Let’s say this one called Comparing Categorical and Probabilistic Fingerprint Evidence” seems to suit my purposes. I can reveal a menu with more information, including the article’s abstract, by hovering my mouse over or clicking the preview link at the bottom of the record. 

I can usually get the whole article by clicking on its title or the “Full Text Online” link. This takes me to the journal publisher's website or a database that provides access to this article.  In some cases, the link in Summon may not bring you directly to the article. If that ever happens, you can get help from a librarian by clicking the chat icon at the top right of your results page.

It is important to know that the URL from the database is often a temporary address, and will not necessarily return you to the article at a later time.  

However, Summon provides an easy way to return to selected results. 

You can access a permanent link for an article from the results page by clicking on the “Preview” button and following the “Permanent Link” button below. 

You can also keep track of the articles that you have found potentially useful. Next to each result, there is a small folder icon. Clicking this puts articles in a temporary folder, which you can print, email, or export to your favorite citation management system. If you decide to email the list to yourself, the email you get from Summon will include a permanent link to your results.
 
You can even format the citation in your preferred citation style. 

If you have any questions about Summon or any other library tool, you can always ask a librarian for help.