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English for Academic Purposes

To support the EAP Foundational Courses at NYU Shanghai

Search in the Catalog

Start on the NYU Shanghai Library website and use the main Catalog Search box to look for your research topic. Click on the magnifying glass icon to search.

Catalog Search box with keywords, showing the magnifying glass to begin a search.

Search Tips

  • Limit your search to different source genres with the "Resource Type" filter to the left of the search results. Watch the video about source types for help deciding what type of sources to use.
  • Use AND to connect different main ideas in your search, or use the Advanced Search and put different main ideas on different search lines.
  • Use "quotation marks" around keywords that are made up of multiple words, like "space station" or "black holes".
  • Use OR to connect multiple keywords for the same idea, like: alien OR "extra terrestrial"
  • Change your keywords as you focus your research and learn more about your topic. Try to use words you see in good sources from your results.

Search for Videos

Videos can be a useful source, especially for your EAP research. Remember to evaluate the source carefully to make sure it's appropriate for your assignment. Academic sources should be created by researchers for other researchers - usually conference presentations or lectures. Non-academic sources might be useful as an introduction to a topic, depending on your instructor's requirements.

Videos from the Library

The library has many databases with streaming videos for different purposes and in different subject areas. You might find some more relevant videos in the following databases:

Videos Online

There are many places you can find academic videos online. These starting points might be more related to your topic. Remember to evaluate each video to decide if it is academic and reliable.

Search in Science Databases

Subject-specific databases can be more complicated to use, and you might find the results are more technical than the results from the library catalog. But, sometimes sources that aren't available in the catalog will be in databases. They might be useful for your research.

If you want to try out searching in scientific research databases, try starting with these options: