Library: Resources For High School Students: Find Articles

Academic Search Premier

For KC / Northland-area High School Students

High school students in Kansas City's Northland have access to wonderful resources through Mid Continent Public Library:

Academic OneFile at MCPL
A good source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals.
Academic Search Elite at MCPL
Search articles from academic and professional journals covering many subject areas.
MCPL InterLibrary Loan
Request materials not owned by MCPL. A free service to any patron with a valid MCPL card in good standing.
MCPL Locations
View a map of MCPL branch locations or a listing with hours.

Search Tips

Need help Searching? Check out these Search Tips!

These tips pertain to many library databases including the "Advanced Search" screen of Pirate Search.

Boolean Operators (AND / OR)

	AND	OR
How it works:	Search results contain both Term #1 and Term #2	Search results contain either Term #1 or Term #2 (or both)
Effects on search results:	Narrows / Fewer results	Broadens / More results
Examples with diagrams:	Peas AND Carrots Results = the middle area overlapped by both circles	Peas OR Carrots Results = the entire area of both circles

Asterisks and Quotation Marks

Using an asterisk wildcard (*) at the end of a partial word will broaden search results by including multiple word endings.

When searching for a specific phrase (two or more words together), adding quotation marks around that phrase will typically narrow your search results.

For example:

Using child* will search for all variations of the word child, including children, children's, or childhood.
A search on "sexual strategies theory" -- with the quotation marks included -- will retrieve only those records containing these three words together in this exact order.

Limiters in Pirate Search

Some of the limiters you can use in Pirate Search are:

Full-text: Only full-text results, eliminating content that has been indexed by the publisher but isn't available through Park's subscriptions
Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Journals: Only content from academic journals in which the content has undergone peer-review, which is review by other scholars in the field.
Publication date: Only material published within a certain time-frame
Source type: Allows you specify the type of material or the format. You can request only books, eBooks, news articles, academic articles and more depending on your information needs.
Language: Only material produced in a certain language. Be aware that the library and databases can't offer translation services, so you'll need to be able to read and understand the resources that you find!
Publisher: Only bring back material from certain databases. This is useful if your professor has assigned specific databases for you to use.
And more...

The image below shows where you can find limiters in Pirate Search

Subject Databases

A-Z Database List
The complete list of Park University library databases accessible by title, subject, and other categorizations.

Boolean Operators Video

This video from Lincoln Memorial University explains how Boolean Operators work!