Online Indexes & Databases

As you work on narrowing down your topic, it can help to look through online indexes and databases for ideas and to get an initial sense of what is available on any given topic. Just as an index at the back of a book lets you quickly go to a topic within the book, online indexes and databases quickly sort through thousands of records to identify articles or books on a topic.

Before you choose a particular database for your search, it is helpful to know some fundamentals about searching.