MeL Minute - Academic Search Complete

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From Ann Rau, Reference and Instruction Librarian at Lansing Community College and the MeL Team:

Academic Search Complete is the fourth most popular MeL eResource with over a half million retrievals in the last three months. Have you checked it out since it went live on Oct 1? 
Anne Rau of Lansing Community College writes: “My instructor says I have to get peer-reviewed and scholarly articles. Help!!!” This has to be one of the most frequently asked questions academic librarians hear from students. Here at the LCC Library, one of our go to databases for this is Academic Search Complete from EBSCO. It was added to the Michigan eLibrary this past fall. It covers a wide variety of subjects, so it can be used for almost any program of study.
For Beginning and Experienced Searchers 
What I especially like about Academic Search Complete is the one stop shopping to find scholarly/peer-reviewed/trade journal articles on so many diverse subjects.  I have observed that students find the interface easy to navigate and find relevant articles quickly. A really nice thing about Academic Search Complete is that it is good for both beginning and experienced searchers. Search options and limiters are displayed without being too intimidating. Novice searchers will be able to get relevant results without getting too fancy. Experienced searchers can use search techniques such as Boolean/Phrase searching, and choose search fields such as: Author, Journal Name, Author Supplied Keywords and much more. Limiters include: Document Type, Number of Pages, Publication type and more. 
Content and Features 
The database is a great place to go for STEM research. In addition to scholarly and peer-reviewed articles, Academic Search Complete also contains material from trade journals that support our students in Business, Law, Fire Science, and many of our other programs. Images will appear in search results, as well as video from the Associated Press. This makes it visually appealing, and students can enhance their projects with multimedia elements.  
Results can be saved/shared in the ways we have all come to expect, including cloud storage and social media. The citation tool generates citations from MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian and more. Of course, we always tell the students to double check those citations! 
I have focused on the peer-reviewed/scholarly/trade journals, but Academic Search Complete contains full-text articles from popular magazines and newspapers as well.  So if you have a stressed out student beginning an assignment, Academic Search Complete can be a great resource to get that research ball rolling. (It’s good when you aren’t stressed out too!)  

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