Depending on the database, it may offer a variety of ways to limit your results:
For articles that are not available in full text, use the InterLibrary Loan service.
Most databases use a controlled vocabulary to organize information and make browsing more efficient and specific to chosen terms. When building your search string, consider keywords, synonyms or related terms. See several examples in the table below.
Subject Terms | Related Terms |
---|---|
Doping in sports | Performance-enhancing drugs |
Computer crimes | Cyberbullying, cyberstalking, cyberterrorism, Internet fraud |
Body image | Sexual objectification, Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia |
Combine or group terms or concepts using the Boolean operator "AND" to refine your search string: computer crimes AND cyberbullying or try the search string: body image AND bulimia . Check to see if the database offers a Thesaurus or a Subject Terms tab or link. For instance, the database Academic Search Premier offers a "subject terms" tab, and the ERIC database features a "thesaurus" tab, while ProQuest offers a "thesaurus" link. Enter terms in the Browsing box to see how the database recognizes them.
Searching by topic: Using the general database Academic Search Premier, click on the "Subject Terms" tab and enter the topic, death penalty and consider related terms. Sometimes other terms will be given to use such as capital punishment in place of death penalty. Although one can find articles using the words death penalty, the subject heading used in this database is capital punishment. See screen shot below:
Select the subject heading to see if the database provides more information about it or broader, narrower, or related terms, which can assist in building a search about the topic. Example: capital punishment AND lethal injection AND prisons. When a good article is found, check to see how it is indexed (what subject terms are used). These terms or additional keywords provide ways to create a new search or to combine with the original search term.
YouTube video created by NSU Libraries on how to search multiple EBSCOhost databases simultaneously.