Adler University Library: Literature Review Guide: Search for Scholarly Articles

Step 1. Select a Library Database to Search for Journal Articles in Your Field of Study

Adler Library subscribes to many subject-specific article databases, each of which index the scholarly literature in a particular field of study. An alphabetical list of library databases can be found on the library webpage.
Below is a sample list of the library's subject-specific databases.
Think about which field(s) of study might be talking about your topic and select a subject database for that discipline.

PSYCHOLOGY	ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP	HEALTH SCIENCES	EDUCATION	GENDER STUDIES
APA PsycInfo	Business Source Elite	PubMed Central	ERIC	GenderWatch
ProQuest Psychology Journals		MEDLINE		SocINDEX

Note: There are also "multi-disciplinary" or interdisciplinary article databases which index the scholarly literature across multiple fields of study. Examples of multi-disciplinary databases are: Academic Search Complete and Google Scholar.

It is important to search in several databases. No one database contains all the scholarly literature on a topic.

Step 2. Search Words to Use in Library Databases

Refer to the Venn diagram you created. These key concepts will be your database search terms.
Each of the 3-5 key concepts will be searched individually and in relation to one another.
Now, you're ready to insert your key concepts into a library database.

Step 3. Repeat Process: Initial Search / Review Results / Revised Search

This is the point in the research process that is the most iterative. (That's why it's called re-search!)

After you review the results from your search, try using different search words. (Ex: subject terms instead of keywords)
Try different combinations of your key concepts (Ex: using AND & OR)
Also search in a different database.

Continue searching, trying different combinations of keywords until you start to see the same results over and over again. This usually indicates that you have exhausted the literature.

Search Terms: Keywords and Subject Headings

Watch the following short video from USU libraries which explains the different types of database searching language.

Keywords	Subject Headings
Natural language - user generated	Controlled vocabulary used to describe a subject
Could appear only once - anywhere in abstract or title	Database applies subject headings to each resource, based on topic/subject of resource (adds specificity to your search)
No related terms are found, but homonyms might be (words spelled the same, but with different meanings)	Exist in a thesaurus, so helps you find related terms, weed out homonyms
Like using Ctrl+F in a document	All variations (spellings) are covered
Useful when: topic is very new, or looking for specific person/organization	Useful when: topic has established academic research on it, and you want highly relevant results

AND / OR / NOT

Library databases use important operators to connect search terms.

These important words affect the results that your search yields.

They connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results.
The three basic operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

AND

narrows your results
finds the overlap of the topics you search
instructs the database that ALL search terms must be present in your set of results
example: housing AND harm reduction AND Overdose

expands your results
connects two or more similar concepts (synonyms)
instructs the database that ANY of your search terms can be present in your set of results
example: counsellors OR psychologists OR therapists

NOT

narrows your results
excludes words from your search
instructs the database to ignore concepts
useful if a concept is implied by your search terms and you do not want to include it
example: spirituality NOT religion