Academic Search Complete: Home

Scholarly articles are articles written by experts in their field. For example, you wouldn't want to base your nursing research paper on articles written by someone who has never been to medical school. You'd want to find articles written by either nurses or doctors!

Scholarly articles are more than just articles written by experts. To learn more about scholarly articles, visit our Scholarly vs. Popular: What's the Difference? guide.

Did you know that all EBSCOhost databases have nearly the identical setup? Once you learn Academic Search Complete, you'll be able to easily use any of the EBSCOhost databases!

Databases are used to find journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Academic Search Complete is a general database, meaning that it has a little bit of everything.

Advantage:

General databases such as Academic Search Complete are great starting points for doing your research.  They're good if you don't know much about your subject or don't know where to begin or what to focus on.  Also, in many cases, general databases have more full-text articles than subject-specific databases that only focus on one field.

Disadvantage:

General databases oftentimes don't have as many scholarly articles about obscure or specialized topics as a subject specific database would. The more specialized your topic is, the less helpful a general database will be for you.

Example:

If you need an article on something common like heart disease, chances are that you would be able to find several scholarly articles in a general database. However if you need an article on something rarer such as Haim-Munk syndrome, a general database would have little, if any, articles on your topic.

Remember: Each database is different and sometimes it can be hard or frustrating starting your research. If you ever get stuck, library staff will gladly help!