Many of your search terms have synonyms, some of them are not currently in use but perhaps were in the past. You should be familiar with all the variations and combine them within your search.   

Prepare a list of the terminology of your subject area using these options:

• Wikipedia– e.g. – ” Magnetic levitation, maglev, or magnetic suspension is a method by which an object is suspended with no support other than magnetic fields…”
• Subject dictionaries and encyclopedias – Search for them in the library catalog.
• Specialized thesaurus (controlled terms vocabularies) – A thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms. Some of our databases include a built-in thesaurus which can help to retrieve more accurate information, minimizing the retrieval of irrelevant information. In order to learn how to use this option in many databases, please consult our information specialists.

Please note – If you are not using a thesaurus, the database does not have one or you haven’t found your terms in the database’s thesaurus, you can always combine your keywords by using the operators AND / OR / NOT.

Example

Below is an example of a combined keyword search in SCOPUS database (a multidisciplinary resource) BUT also in Web of science, PUBMED, Engineering Village, Psycinfo and more:

“Diabetes mellitus type 2” OR “Diabetes mellitus type II”

AND

“Insulin Secreting Cells” OR  “Pancreatic beta Cells”

NOT

mice OR mouse OR rat

The retrieved results will include the variations of search terms which were combined by the OR operators and will not include the words mice, mouse or rat.

• Library Search Systems– “Articles & more” (EDS) – Allows users to perform a combined-search within the library catalog and databases all together. “Book & More” – For books names, Technion theses, journal name etc.
• Library Databases– General or subject specific.
• Google Scholar (GS)– A multidisciplinary free-to-use database which searches within a variety of sources. It is important to know that GS is not a selective database, thus, many results are in low quality.

If you are in campus and using a desktop computer or a secured wireless connection, you will enjoy a full availability of our resources, no identification needed. For other cases, please follow the instruction in our off-campus page.

It is very important to be very critical about your search findings. In other words, in order to use the information that you find it is important to look for signs of quality which include the source’s impact factor, the author’s H-index, citations and more. You can find help to base your research on high-quality information in this complete evaluation tools guide. ​

If you come across with a resource which is not available to Technion users, don’t be hasty to give it up. In these cases we offer you the services of our Interlibrary Loan and D ocument Supply (ILL).

The ILL department enables ordering of items that are not part of the collections of the Technion, from other academic libraries in Israel and from academic libraries around the world.​

Citation Management Tools allow you to store, organize and share your research citations (books, articles, theses, patents and more) and automatically format your bibliographies in academic writing in a wide variety of styles.

In our “Citation Tools” page you can overview some of the most popular citation tools available and use the comparison table which will help you to choose the right tool for you.

Mendeley Institutional Edition is recommended by the Technion Libriaries. In “Citation Tools” you will find a complete Mendeley user guide (written by Reference & Instruction Department) , Link to Mendeley Guides and a “migration link” which will help you migrate your saved work in other software (Refworks, EndNote, Zotero etc.) to Mendeley.​

Use of digital services provided by the Technion Libraries must be in compliance with the Israel Copyright Law and legal agreements signed between the Technion libraries, MALMAD and the publishers. Please read our Copyright & Fair Use Guidelines for better understanding of copyright issues.​

• Define your research topic.
• Collect all the keywords and synonyms.
• Choose the right databases and instruct you on how to use them (theses, articles, patents, technical information, data and more).
• Evaluate your findings.
• Learn how to manage, organize and cite your references by using Mendeley citation tool.​​

For any questions please feel free to contact the Reference and Instruction Services at the Technion Libraries or go to “Contact Us” for other contact routes.