Health Studies: Find Articles
What are articles and where can I find them?
When your professors say something like "find five articles for your reference list", they are typically asking you to track down peer-reviewed publications from an academic or research journal. These journals usually have names like The Lancet, Science, or New England Journal of Medicine.
There are hundreds of journals for different subjects and disciplines, so to save researchers time and energy trying to search through all of them individually, many of them are collected and made available through literature databases like PubMed or CINAHL Plus. These databases offer streamlined searching and in many cases also provide access to the full-text of articles. In cases where the full-text is not available in that database, the Libraries often can provide access through other resources.
Keyword searching using Boolean operators
Keywords
Keep in mind that the literature databases you will most likely be using do not function like Google or other search engines. Google relies on natural language processing to find quick answers; literature databases require you to be a little more thoughtful and purposeful with your search strings in order to pull together sources for in-depth research. You will have better luck finding what you need if you have a basic understanding of keyword searching using Boolean operators.
A basic keyword search in most databases will look for your terms in a few different places, most often in the article title, author, subject terms, and abstract fields. Keep in mind that, with very few exceptions, literature databases will not search in the full-text of an article! So if you want to find a wide array of sources on a particular topic, you will need to spend a little time brainstorming synonyms for some of your keywords.
VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Topic Breakdown
Boolean operators
Once you've got your starting list of keywords, you need to think about how to input them into the database's search interface, which often requires a basic understanding of Boolean operators and how they work. Simply put, Boolean operators tell the database how the keywords you're searching for are or are not related. The operators you'll want to become familiar with are OR, AND, and NOT. (Note: you don't have to capitalize your operators when you go to type in your search strings, but it can help visually separate your terms and is highly recommended.)
| Boolean Operator | When to use it | Example search string | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| OR | Use OR when you want to search for synonyms or similar concepts | vaccination OR inoculation |
Will bring back results that mention either "vaccination" or "inoculation". Will increase the number of search results; search is more comprehensive. |
| AND | Use AND when you want to connect two or more different concepts | cancer AND lethargy |
Will only bring back results that mention "cancer" together with "lethargy" (but not necessarily adjacent to each other). Will decrease the number of search results; search is more focused. |
| NOT | Use NOT when you want to exclude a concept from your search results. Use very sparingly! | dementia NOT Huntington |
Will bring back results that mention "dementia", but will exclude those that mention "Huntington". Best to only use if you notice the same irrelevant concept coming up in your search results, as it may potentially exclude some relevant information. Will decrease the number of results. Order matters with this one! "dementia NOT Huntington" will bring back a different set of results than "Huntington NOT dementia". |
VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Boolean Operators
Advanced search techniques
There are lots of other techniques you can use to effectively and efficiently search literature databases. Most will allow you to use all the techniques listed below but may have slightly different characters or syntax. Be sure to check the databases' help pages to find the correct syntax for each resource!
| Strategy | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Truncation |
Uses an asterisk to search for results that include the selected prefix with any word endings VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Truncation |
nurs* Will include results that mention "nurse", "nurses", "nursing", etc. |
| Wildcards |
Uses a symbol (most often $ or #) to search for terms that may have alternate spellings or additional characters. Check the help page for the database you're searching to make sure you're using the correct symbol. |
an$esthesia Will include results that mention "anesthesia" (American spelling) or "anaesthesia" (British spelling) |
| Phrase searching |
Uses quotation marks to enclose a group of terms that must show up exactly as typed. VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Phrase Searching |
"cancer fatigue" Will only include results that mention "cancer fatigue" exactly (but not necessarily "cancer-related fatigue"). |
| Proximity searching |
Uses an operator and a number (e.g., "N3", "NEAR/3") to find terms that appear in close proximity to each other. Some databases, like PubMed, do not allow for proximity searching, and others use different syntax. Be sure to check the help page for the database you're searching to make sure you're using the correct syntax. VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Proximity Operators |
blood N3 collection Will include results that mention "blood collection", "collection of blood", "blood was collected", etc. |
| Nesting |
Uses parentheses to group terms and more effectively use Boolean operators. VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to Search: Boolean Operators (starting at 2:09) |
(cancer OR neoplasm) AND (chemotherapy OR radiation) Will return search results that mention "cancer" together with either "chemotherapy" or "radiation", as well as "neoplasm" with either "chemotherapy" or "radiation". |
| Subject headings | Uses predefined subject terms (also called controlled vocabulary) to help account for different spellings, synonyms, and other related concepts. Typically more limiting than keyword searching. Different databases use different terms, so be sure to check the resource's thesaurus to select the best headings. |
"dementia"[Mesh] Will return search results that have been tagged with the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) term "dementia". MeSH is used primarily in PubMed; other resources have similar headings. |
Other Useful Databases
These databases provide good information for many of the subject areas that fall under the umbrella of health studies.
- Academic Search CompleteA good general database that has broad (but not deep) coverage of scholarly and popular literature in a wide variety of subject areas.
- AgricolaAGRICOLA indexes materials owned and cataloged by the National Agriculture Library, including research related to food and food science.
- medRxivAn open access preprint repository for the health sciences. Articles initially posted in medRxiv HAVE NOT gone through the peer review process, so be careful. Some older articles may have links to the final published version
- Social Science Citation IndexThe authoritative source for citation/bibliometric analysis.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar uses Google's powerful online tools to search academic literature. Its index includes books, conference papers and gray literature in addition to articles in peer reviewed research journals.
Key literature databases and indices for health studies
If you're looking for journal articles on a particular topic, this is the place to start. Literature databases, or indexes, track the individual articles published in the thousands of research journals available in health studies. Some indexes are built for very particular fields of study, while others are broad (but less comprehensive).
- PubmedThe main source for medical literature.
- CINAHL PlusThis is the major nursing database. Often the resources available here can be more accessible than those in Pubmed.
- Health Source -- Nursing/Academic EditionMore scholarly information than in the consumer edition, but more accessible than Pubmed.
What is peer review?
Peer review is the process by which articles are selected for publication in academic/scholarly journals. The articles are evaluated for accuracy, proper research methodology, and the correct interpretation and use of data by other experts in the field. No other publications undergo this level of vetting.
How do I know if something is peer reviewed?
If you are looking for peer reviewed articles, there are a number of ways to locate them. One way is to limit your database searches to only articles in peer reviewed publications. Many databases allow you to do this. For example, most EBSCO Host databases have a box labeled "Scholarly" or "Peer Reviewed" in the limiters section under the main search boxes.
Another way is to use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. This is an authoritative source for information about periodicals. Simply search the title of the journal using a title (keyword) search in the search box ont he top right of the page. If the journal is labeled as refereed: yes (or has a little icon of a referee's jersey in the results list) then it is a peer reviewed publication.
Search Tip: Use the Find It! Button
When you search a database for a "Full Text" item, you are only searching through that particular database for the document in full-text, and not our entire collection. An item may exist as a "Full Text" selection within a different database.
If you don't find an item as full-text in the database you're searching, use the "Find It" button to cross-search other databses for that same item. You may discover that we have electronic access to that material after all.
