Using Online Databases

YEY RESEARCH!

What are Scholarly Databases?

Professionals in various fields conduct scientific research and publish their research to share their ideas with other professionals and people

Their articles are published in professional newsletters, periodicals, and scholarly journals. Scholarly journals are specific publications dedicated to research in a certain field

Often – but not all the time - to be published in a journal, the article has to be reviewed by a groups of peers – other professionals. It must be accepted as good research.

Scholarly databases are collections of the citations and full texts of the journal articles

These databases are searchable by keywords for subjects, authors, titles, etc.

By selecting certain limiters you are able to find specific and professional information written by experts in the field

What kind of information can you find in a scholarly database?

Newspaper Articles

Magazine Articles

Newsletters

Scholarly Research (articles, case studies, etc.)

Collections of citations (bibliographies)

How do you find the information?

Be sure you know what you are looking for. For example, do you need a newspaper article, or a scholarly article?

Be sure you know which database you need to use. Make sure you are familiar with the databases your library offers.

You will need to use keywords to find the information.

Using Keywords to Search Online

Keyword Searching

Information is made up of words

Information is organized by records – and these records are organized by keywords

You can think about keywords as significant words

Boolean Searching

OR : instructs the database to find information containing BOTH search termsEXAMPLE: cars OR automobiles

AND : instructs the database to only find information containing BOTH search termsEXAMPLE: mosquitos AND malaria

NOT : instructs the database to only find results that do NOT contain a certain wordEXAMPLE: Titanic NOT movie

How do you evaluate the information?

Recommended FREE Databases

Scirus

Scirus.com

PubMed Central

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

Google Scholar

Google.com/scholar

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

A science-specific search engine

Scirus.com

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

Archive of journals from National Library of Medicine

PubMed Central

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

Google’s search engine for scholarly journals – NOT science or medicine specific

Google Scholar