Our finding sources page shows you how to create a good basic search strategy. This will save you time and ensure you find good quality information. 

We recommend the Open University’s short, free online course Succeeding in postgraduate study to help you refresh your search skills.

Advanced searching: sources and skills

Your first port of call should be Library Search and resources specific to your subject. We strongly recommend downloading LibKey to your browser. LibKey will make finding our subscriptions easier when using resources like Google Scholar, PubMed or Wikipedia. We also strongly recommend using BrowZine to find whole journals and receive alerts to new content. If you'd like books in alternative formats then try our accessible texts from Bookshare.

You should also consider including some of these resources in your research:

Open Access search engines Core, Unpaywall, BASE, OA Button and OAIster bring together freely available resources from across subject areas. PubMed Central (PMC) does similar for biomedical and life sciences. Content includes open access articles, books chapters, theses, dissertations and research.

UK theses and dissertations can be found on EThOS (although this is currently unavailable to due to a cyber attack on the British Library). OhioLINK has some US content. OATD brings together theses from around the world. The NDLTD provides a comprehensive list of dissertation repositories globally. You will find abstracts and some full text on all these sites.

Web of Science is a large multidisciplinary citations database. A quick reference guide and a series of training videos are available.

Citation searching helps you to find articles or books that have been cited in a book or article you have read. You can find more recent works on a subject and build up a connected trail of research in your area.

At its simplest level, citation searching means reviewing a reference list or bibliography, then copying and pasting useful titles into Library Search. Many databases now link to cited articles: look for Cited By or Times Cited. Click on the links to find further references. These resources can also help you with citations searching:

• Use Google Scholar’s Cited by linked to find related content. You should download LibKey to make the most of our subscriptions while using Google Scholar. You can link your University account to Google Scholar for easier access to full text materials
• Publish or Perish can be used with Google Scholar to track and analyse citations
• Our systematic review page

Keeping up to date

Find the latest research:

• Use BrowZine to find whole journals, create a bookshelf of your favourites and get alerts of new content.
• Get search results emailed to you by setting up alerts in databases you use
• See the latest publications: use journal alerting services such as Google Scholar Alerts and JournalTOCs. You’ll receive newly published journal articles in your area of research. Individual journals and publishers also allow you to set up alerts for their content
• Set up RSS feeds from news sites and journals. You’ll need an RSS reader like Feedly
• Connect with other researchers: use blogs, X (formerly Twitter) and networking sites like Academia.edu and ResearchGate

Managing your references

For a basic reference generator try ZoteroBib or MyBib. Make sure you have the correct referencing style selected. See our referencing guide to find out which style your courses uses. 

You can organise your references with a reference management tool. These help you to insert citations into your work and create bibliographies in different referencing styles. Some have other useful features such as sharing references, saving PDFs and social networking. To find out more see What reference manager should I use?