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Dental Whitening/Bleaching

A guide to assist with research for teeth whitening assignment

Why Use the Library?

Now that you have some general background information or information on a trend, it is time to learn more about your topic. Using the library may be a bit different but don't worry! This page will guide you through the steps of using Library Search, the library's main search tool.

Many of the tips we will cover can be used in many of our other Research Databases and even in search engines.

Library Search will search everything the library owns as well as shared resources with other colleges. It will also search many of our research databases at the same time. Using Library Search will help you:

  • Understand what type of information is available on a topic
  • Avoid any paywalls, or paying for use of an article or book, that you may encounter when using Google
  • Filter or limit your search results in ways that are not available in other search engines
  • Find credible, authoritative sources on your topic

Using Library Search Terms/Keywords

Basic Search

Using Library Search for a basic search is easy and is great for getting background information or seeing what is available. Just follow these steps:

  1. Go to https://library.prairiestate.edu/
  2. Place one of your keyword into the Library Search box and click the search box:

  3. The results will open in a new tab.

Sometimes, your research topic will require you to search more than one concept at a time. For example, how does tooth whitening effect tooth sensitivity? If we just look for tooth whitening, our results will have a mix of subtopics.

Also, if we search just tooth sensitivity, our results could venture into conditions that may cause sensitivity, unrelated to our topic. In order to find the most relevant information for our topic, we will have to combine terms using Boolean Operators.

Boolean Operators

Boolean Operators are simple ways for you to expand or restrict your search. There are only three to remember: AND, OR, NOT

Using AND

When you connect to concepts with AND, your result set will be narrower because you are telling Library Search you want information that contains both concepts.

Your search may look like: tooth whitening AND tooth sensitivity

Using OR

OR will expand your search because you will now be looking for information that contains one word, the other word, or both.

Your search may look like: tooth whitening OR teeth whitening

Using NOT

Not will narrow your search results by limiting your results to those that contain the words before NOT, but not the words after NOT. You may want to do this when one of your search terms has different meanings in different contexts, or if you want to exclude results that may not be relevant to your research.

For example, if you want to research tooth whitening, but did not want to include bleaching you would use NOT.

tooth whitening NOT bleaching

 

 

Video created by Western University

Understanding Your Results

If we search: emotional intelligence AND high school, we get over 900 results

This may be much fewer than a Google search, but you may still want to use the variety of tools provided in Library Search to limit or filter your results to only those relevant to your research topic.

For help in determining which result to read, take a look at the video in the "What Do Those Details Mean?" box: 

For more details on filtering your results, see our detailed video on using filters.

Limiting Your Search Results

All the tools to limit your search results will be on the left side of the results page. These include limiting by publication date and by resource type.

 

Scholarly resources will have "peer reviewed" under the article information (see image below)

 

Why Use a Research Database?

As we learned, OneSearch searches everything the library owns, plus, many of our research databases. Even though there are ways to limit our search results, sometimes it is easier to use a Research Database for focused research. 

Types of Databases
  • General - contains information on a variety of subjects and will include both scholarly and non-scholarly material
  • Reference - contains short encyclopedia articles on a variety of subjects
  • Subject - contains information about one general subject ( like the databases we have for Dental Hygiene)

Each database has a brief description of the type of information it contains directly below the name of the database.

How to Access the Databases
  1. Start at the library's homepage: https://library.prairiestate.edu/
  2. Click the All Databases button next to the OneSearch box
  3. Use the A-Z links to navigate to a database, or just scroll down to the database you would like to access

How to Choose a Database

You can always Ask a Librarian if you are unsure about which database to use. You can also use the Subject or Type drop-down menus to help you select the database you would like.