Main concept
Modify that concept: What aspects? Specific authors?
Retrieved too little? Think of synonyms, broader terms to search.
Use the wildcard * (asterisk) to retrieve alternate word endings
e.g. salin* to retrieve saline and salinity
Retrieved too much? Think of more aspects to add.
Does the discovery tool let you Refine Your Results?
e.g. limit the results by publication dates, publication types (e.g. scholarly/peer reviewed journals),
specify age groups, human/animal studies, languages...
What type of information do you need? What discovery tools (e.g. databases, search engines) include them?
Try searching multiple discovery tools if you can't find what you need in one.
Use OneSearch, the Library's discovery tool to
Search for books, ebooks, articles, videos, maps, and more.
Discover and request materials from other CSU Libraries (using CSU+ Resource Sharing)
Find course materials placed in the library by your professor (course reserves)
OneSearch is useful if you want to conduct a quick search to find a few articles on a topic, or you want to locate articles from journals in different disciplines.
You can tell OneSearch to look only for articles. After you type in your search words, select Articles from the drop-down menu.
Or, after you search for your terms, you can also Refine your search to Articles (or articles in Peer-reviewed Journals as needed) :
You can also specify a specific publication year or year range: Further down the Refine column, change the years and click Refine
Click on the article title to get the full information about the article, including the abstract, links to the article itself, and OneSearch's citation generator.
The Library subscribes to hundreds of databases, many containing scholarly journal articles and/or that index and link to where you can get the article. Multidisciplinary databases are often a good place to start your search.
Many databases include other publication types as well as articles: look for ways the database gives you to limit your search results to just articles, or just articles in scholarly journals if that is what you need..
Academic Search Ultimate
Index to news, magazines, and scholarly journals in a wide variety of subjects.
♦ Limit your search to scholarly journals by checking the box: Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
Peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles; from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly and research organizations. Also includes patents.
Follow the link above and SAVE the Library access settings before continuing to search Google Scholar. This will provide you with Fresno State library links when searching from off campus.
If Google Scholar's links don't get you to the article text or you are asked to pay for the article, use the Find It @ Fresno State link:
it will connect to our e-subscriptions, catalog, and our Interlibrary Loan form.
If the Find It @ Fresno State link does not appear, click on the 
double arrow at the end of the last row of the reference entry
Remember that Google Scholar searches a lot of types of sources, including articles. Pay attention to what you retrieve if you are looking for a specific type of publication.