Where to look for articles
- Academic SearchA general catch-all database for all topics. May contain some medical or relevant studies, but don't forget it has a lot of non-scholarly stuff in it.
- SocINDEXA sociology specific database, it contains just articles from sociology, criminal justice, and social work perspectives.
- PsycINFOA psychology specific database, it contains just articles from a psychology perspective.
- ERICWorking on an education-related research question? Try this education specific database.
- CINAHL Completeincludes selected original and full-text material about nursing and allied health topics.
Best Practices Articles
Looking for handbooks
Don't forget, you don't need to use the whole book. Want to use just a chapter? Let us scan it for you. Fill out this form and bring it and the book up to the front (circulation) desk and we'll scan it and email it to you.
Source Types
Searching EBSCO databases
Academic Search Premier is a general database that contains both popular and scholarly articles from a variety of disciplines and sources. Great place to start if you need to confirm the viability of a topic.
The tips in this video will apply to most other EBSCO databases as well, including SocINDEX, ERIC, , and more. Subject specific databases like those may have some special features like unique limiters, but otherwise they will function the same way. The name of the database will be listed above the search bar:
Searching JSTOR
JSTOR is a general database that contains primarily full-text scholarly articles from a variety of disciplines. It differs from other UD databases in the fact that it searches the entire full-text of the articles, but has few options for limiting searching and no subject headings. This database is particularly useful when you already know some specifics about your topic.
How to get full text of an article from a database?
Some articles are full-text in the database you selected to search in. Other times it may be located in one of the other 50 databases we subscribe to. Sometimes you'll find a citation for an article we don't have immediate access to; we can usually get you these as well. This service is part of your affiliation with the university; don't ever pay for access to an article. We can typically get it for you. This will show you how to do that.