Journals, magazines and newspapers are an excellent source of current information.
Newspapers and magazines:
Articles are written by individuals or reporters who may or may not be experts in the field of the article. The information is general in nature and the articles may contain incorrect information.
Peer-reviewed (refereed or scholarly) journals:
Articles are written by experts and are reviewed by several other experts in the field before the article is published in peer-reviewed (refereed or scholarly) journals. The review includes evaluating the content, methodology, results and conclusions.
Thousands of articles on all kinds of topics are stored in article databases. An article database is a collection of information stored in an electronic format that can be searched. Most articles are immediately available for you to read, or to print/save/email for later use.
To find articles:
• Select an appropriate database from the recommended databases below.
• Type your topic in the Search Box and limit your search to "full-text" to find articles that you can read or print immediately. You can also limit your search results to "peer-reviewed" and/or scholarly articles.
Making your search more specific to your topic (Refining your search results):
• Combining or excluding keywords or terms in a search will give you more focused and productive results by eliminating inappropriate "hits". The tools you use to refine your search are called Boolean Operators.
The table below illustrates the usage of Boolean operators:
• It is advisable to use quotation marks (" ") when searching for a phrase (e.g. "autism spectrum disorders"). The exact phrase will be searched, not each individual word. Searching the exact phrase reduces the number of irrelevant "hits" and gives you more relevant results.
| AND | OR | NOT | AND NOT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Each search result contains all the search terms. | Each search result contains at least one of the search terms. | Search results do not contain the specified term(s) in the results. | Search results will include a specified term but will exclude another specified term. |
| Using AND narrows your search. | Using OR expands your search | Using NOT makes your search more specific. | |
| "autism spectrum disorders" AND children | "autism spectrum disorders" OR ASD | "autism spectrum disorders" NOT anxiety | "autism spectrum disorders" AND children NOT adults |
Sample search from Family & Society Studies Worldwide:
• Choose PDF article format over HTML format. For scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles, format is important. PDF format preserves the scanned image of the original document, (fonts, graphics, tables, pagination, etc), making it ideal format for science research and for meeting legal requirements. HTML documents are re-formatted documents for quick printing. The documents are generally plain-text. Graphics, charts and tables are omitted.
Need more help? Check out the wealth of information in the help links below. Use the help feature found in each and every database to guide your search.
