Suggestions to improve your search results

* Try to give as much different information as you can if you are looking for a specific book: if possible give a keyword as well as the author name. For example, if you are looking for 'The Study of Language' by George Yule, searching for 'language Yule' will significantly improve the quality of your results.

* The above point is especially important if you are searching for a term that appears in everyday language as well as in a technical or academic context (examples might include 'language', 'material', 'learning', 'knowledge' or 'life'), or if the author has a very popular name (e.g. Smith).

* Remember to use the options on the right-hand side of the search results. These options take you to relevant subjects, related journals, blurbs containing your search terms, news items and book reviews.

* If you are getting too many results, use the options on the left hand side of the search results to filter by subject or availability. Once you have used a filter, you can remove it by clicking again on the filter option you have selected.

* Try where possible to use complete words in your search phrase. Partial words may be found but using the full word will be much more effective (e.g. please use 'statistics' instead of 'stats').

* Don't forget about the Advanced Search which lets you narrow the search to specific fields such as author name, subject and title.