When you search in online sources, determine the key words first. Then adjust them as necessary with wildcard and helping characters and combine them with Boolean operators. Then think about whether you want to search for a specific type of document (e.g. journals only) from a certain time period (e.g. the last ten years) written in selected languages (e.g. English, German), etc.

First search in the titles of publications (or alternatively in abstracts/key words). If you find more than 100 records, change your query so that it is more specific. If you do not find anything, look for a very specific term in abstracts/key words rather than in titles. Whether the full text of the publication is available can be determined by means of a direct link or the linking service (Link Source, SFX).

If the full text cannot be found in this way, use the Discovery system to verify whether the journal/book is not in the list of journals/books there. If not even this method helps you to find the full text, check whether the article might be freely available on the internet (e.g. an article on the journal’s website). The last step is to order the publication via ILL (interlibrary loan).