COMM 212: Public Speaking & Professional Presentation Guide

Search tips:

• Enter your search terms on the advanced search screen to allow for maximum control of your search. 
• Put quotation marks around words that you want to keep adjacent to one another such as "social media" 
• Combine your search terms with the connecting words "AND," "OR," and "NOT." 
• Use OR to designate synonymous or interchangeable words that are acceptable in your search results. Put terms connected by OR in parentheses if you type them on one single line.

Example 1: communication AND “social media”

In example 1, you will receive search results with the word communication and the phrase social media appearing somewhere in the article.

Example 2: “strategic communication” AND (business OR organization)

In example 2, you will receive search results with the phrase strategic communication and the word business somewhere in the article or search results with the phrase strategic communication and the word organization somewhere in the article.  

Example 3: "social media" not Facebook

In example 3, you will receive search results with the phrase social media without the word Facebook appearing in the article.

• The advanced search screen allows you make specifications such as requiring that your search terms appear in the title of the document or the abstract of the article.  This will help you obtain a smaller and more relevant list of search results.
• In most cases, the advanced search screen also allows you to select whether or not the search results must be scholarly or peer-reviewed and if the results must be published within a specific date range.

Use library databases to find articles, statistics, and reports on a variety of topics.

Articles on topics such as business communication, interpersonal communication, and intercultural communication can also be found in many of the subject-specific databases subscribed to by the Library, some of which are listed below.