Tech Tools: LibKey Nomad, Google Scholar, RefWorks

Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books are all great tools.

Google Scholar can be used to search for academic sources. Google Books can be used to get book previews. We recommend that you link Google Scholar to our library to see articles owned in our collection instantly. 
 

Directions for how to link Google Scholar to Regent Library:  
 

• Go to Google Scholar
• Open the three-bar or "hamburger" menu in the upper left 
• Click "Settings" in the drop-down menu
• Click the "Library Links" section
• Search for 'regent university'
• Select the 'Regent University - Viewit@regent.edu' option
• Click "Save" and you will be returned to the Google Scholar homepage
• Search for your key words (or titles or authors). Try different combinations.  
• When you find an article that's available in our collection, it will have 'Viewit@regent.edu' in the right column
• Click on that link and select an access option - you will be directed to the Regent login page
• For books that come up, you will need to come to Primo and search for them to see if we have them
   

Tips for Using Google Scholar (Special Operators)
 

• try enclosing words in quotation marks to get exact phrases like "first amendment"
• try synonyms and variations; use the word OR between them, like college OR university 
• use the minus symbol to exclude unrelated words, like Abraham -Lincoln (if you want Abraham from the Bible)
• use the word AROUND to indicate words should be near each other in the results, like Covid AROUND lockdown
• Use an asterisk star * to take the place of missing or unknown words in a phrase
• Search site: then your key words (no spaces) if looking for a website title.
• Search intext: then your key words if looking for it in the text of the website, not the title.
• You do not need to use AND or parentheses with Google
• Also, note that even if you don't use OR, it will treat the various terms as options--you can enter a lot of terms
• You don't need to use an asterisk at the end of a word to bring up different word endings as Google does that already
  
  Great Uses for Google: You can find background information or basic terminology on your topic through regular Google, as well as religious websites, free archives & e-books, newspaper & magazine articles, think tanks, open-access academic sources, and government sources. Remember to use discernment and that a lot of websites are biased, promotional, or non-credible.

It is recommended that you use RefWorks, a Regent-provided free account that stores your sources and forms bibliographies in your format. You can also export sources from Primo to RefWorks. Here are some other options (below).

These links go the official help and training sections of each citation management tool's respective website.

For more help, look for online how-to videos and documentation (particularly on YouTube).