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Database tutorials

Learn how to search selected databases

Database tutorials

ACM Digital Library. (2020, January 8). The New ACM Digital Library: User and Administrator Training. https://youtu.be/N66CxdT6REs

IEEE Xplore. (2020, May 12). Basic Search in IEEE Xplore [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/oXzHKtaNnlU

Further guidance is available within IEEE's Xplore Resources and Help

Informit. (2020, December 2). Informit - New platform overview. https://youtu.be/cEjWz2j0HKw

Use the timestamps to skip to the topic of interest.

These include: Login, Searching, Saving results, Exporting citations and Personalisation features.

A range of tutorials are available from the Scopus tutorial page.

These include:

ProQuest Training. (2015, August 14). Advanced Search [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6p2eJqJT0SI

You can sign up for a 90 minute on demand training session - Web of Science essentials. 

Web of Science has recently updated their search interface and Smart Searching (AI supported) is now the default. You can find out how this works and decide if you wish to turn it off by reading about Smart Searching. 

An introductory video on searching in topic or all feeds is below. 

Web of Science Help Center. (2025). Start searching with Topic or All Fields. https://videos.clarivate.com/watch/esMsL74WTtKgDqsHk84QeP?

Using Google Scholar

Set up Google Scholar preferences to find items held by La Trobe University Library when you are searching off campus.

Search tips

  • Check the Advanced search strategies on the Databases and Journals tab
  • Consider differences in American English and Australian English spelling
  • If a word is sometimes hyphenated, search using the hyphen and find both terms
  • Limits will refine your search results: language, human, gender, age, date or type of publication
  • Check the database Help or Tips to find advice on which symbol to use for truncation or wildcard, and provide other helpful tips