Getting Ready to Use Academic Search Premier

Based on my review of the Academic Search Premier features my impression of the database is that it is quite a useful tool which helps you find material that you are looking for, such as in my case, scholarly journals and popular magazines (if you can find the way in which to locate them and refine your results to include them).  I liked how you where able to for the limit your results option on the advanced search page, it allowed you to limit your results right off the bat to search for scholarly journals which made finding that portion of our assignment much easier.  I also liked how you where able to limit the search through specifying the document type to article, and the publication type to periodical to help refine your results.  Finding a popular magazine was a little more challenging though than the scholarly journal because it did not have a limiter for that specifically.  But I found that if after you have initiated your search and you look on the left hand side to a bar which gives you options to help you refine your search, you can choose the option of magazines and that helps you find popular magazines you can use.


I have never used Academic Search Premier specifically, though during high school in my AP English class we where given the option to using it, (my teacher hinted at another database being easier to use) but I never did because I used a different type of database to find information I needed on the topic I was searching for.


Yes, I used another type of database for research in my AP English class in high school to do a research paper on Crime and Punishment in which we had to incorporate literary critics ideas into our paper.  The name of the database is Questia, and I found it to be very helpful when it came to finding books in general, and for the purpose of the class, books published by literary critics on Crime and Punishment.  Though it allowed you to search for things beyond the mere scope of books.


I do not really have any fears per say about using Academic Search Premier as a database to do research, more so am I nervous about being able to utilize it as a tool correctly and to its full potential.  But I think for the most part that will depend on my ability to specify what I'm searching for in my search strings and limit what I am looking for.  Also I suppose during some of my searches the results which where found were not what I was searching for but I think with honing my search parameters it will not be an issue.