Writing 101: Preventing Pandemics

Day 3: Google Scholar and MS Copilot

• Google Scholar is a freely accessed search engine and NOT "technically" a database, however, it indexes a wide range of scholarly sources such as articles, theses, books, conference papers, and etc.

• You can access a broad language of literature through Google Scholar, from a multidisciplinary perspective, and Duke users can access available full-text articles on-campus and off-campus through VPN and configuring library link access.

General Strategies

1. Basic Search: Start with a simple keyword search related to your topic.

   • Example: ebola west africa inequality 

2. Phrase Search: Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase.

   • Example: "economic policy"

3. Boolean Operators: Use AND, OR, and the minus sign ( - ) to refine your search.

   • Example: (ebola OR EVD)  AND (2013 OR 2014 OR 2015 OR 2016)

4. Wildcard Search: Use an asterisk (*) as a placeholder for any word.

   • Example: Ecolog* = Will search for the words Ecology, Ecological

Advanced Strategies

1. Title Search: Use the intitle: prefix to find articles with specific words in the title.

   • Example: intitle: deforestation ebola west africa or liberia or guinea or sierra leone

Complete the following steps:

1. Type scholar.google.com in Google search box
2. Click on
3. Select "Settings"
4. Next, "Library Links"
5. Then type in the "Show library access links for" box the following:

For Duke University access to full-text articles

• Type "Duke University Libraries - Getit@Duke" and "DUKE UNIVERSITY - ProQuest Fulltext" will appear

For access to Open WorldCat access

• Type "Open WorldCat" and "Open WorldCat - Library Search" will appear