Database Searching

Let's walk through searching in a database. Today we will use EBSCO's Academic Search Complete. If you use another database it may look different. No matter what library database you select, most will have similar search features.

• A basic search bar and a more advanced search bar for multiple keywords
• Various limiters (date range, publication type, language and more!)
• Full PDF text links or "find full text" links

Determine what information you need and determine your topics subject.

• Our sample search question: Does access to higher education affect recidivism (reoffending) for people in prison? 
  • Information needed: my assignment says that I need 3 sources. One needs to be a scholarly article published within the past 10 years. 
  •  Subject of my topic: multidisciplinary (education, criminal justice)

Look and select a database from the A-Z Databases list or select a database from the database tab on the library's homepage. 

• Since our topic is multidisciplinary, we are going to look in Academic Search Complete. The description for Academic Search Complete is "contains journal, magazine, and newspaper articles covering all subject areas."

Getting to know the database you selected.

• Once in the database, look at the homepage and familiarize yourself with it's search features. 
  • Are there any limiters that you can use to find information on your topic? You will be able to add limiters to your search at any time so there is no pressure to add limiters now. 

Time to search!

• Use the search bar to add your keywords. What are keywords? These are important words from your research question or topic. Check out the "Search Strategies" page to learn more about developing keywords. 
  • Our keywords are recidivism and prison.

• Hit search and take a look at your search results. We got 1,702 results. Take a minute to browse your results page. Click on an article title to learn more about the article including the abstract (or summary), author, publisher and access to full text. 

Refining results

• Our results are a bit too broad so let's add another keyword (higher education) into our search. Let's also use the "Refine Results" on the left hand side to change the publication date so we can see sources published within the past 10 years. Want to limit your results more? Try to limit to scholarly (peer reviewed) journals on the left hand side. Hopefully now we can find a scholarly peer reviewed article published within the past 10 years per our assignment. 

• Want more results? Add in synonyms you brainstormed to broaden your search results. For example, let's add synonyms for higher education such as college and university, and use "OR" to let the database know we want results that contain higher education or college or university. 

Look at your results and play around!

• Now that we've walked through the basics of searching in a library database, try different keyword combinations, add or remove limiters and try searching in other databases.