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Research Help: Database Search Tips

What is a Library Database?

A Library database provides quality information that is available to you online. Library databases contain information such as:

  • scholarly peer-reviewed articles
  • articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers on many topics
  • newspaper articles
  • trade publications
  • book reviews
  • magazine articles
  • entries from encyclopedias or dictionaries
  • dissertations/theses

The Library subscribes to 30 subscription-based databases. Subscription-based databases require user login authentication to access off-campus. You will need to enter the username and password to access the database off-campus.

You can find the​​ Library Database Password List as an icon on the Harcum Hatch portal. When you click on the icon, it will take you to the page that lists the usernames and passwords that are needed to access the Library's subscription-based databases.

The Library also provides links to 27 open access databases which are freely available on the Internet.

To access the Library Databases, click on Databases for more information.

Scholarly Journals & Popular Magazines

There are different types of sources available in library databases. In college, students are often required to use only scholarly sources. What is a scholarly source? Let's look at the differences between scholarly and popular sources to help you identify scholarly sources. 

Popular Sources

Cover of Philadelphia Magazine, an example of a popular magazine.

Popular sources are...

  • Written for the general public
  • If they cover research studies, they will broadly summarize studies that appeared in a scholarly journal
  • Articles are shorter than those in scholarly journals and cover a wide range of topics
  • Contain many photographs and advertisements
  • Articles are usually written by journalists
  • Magazines, newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and television news programs are all examples of popular sources. 
  • Examples include magazines like Philadelphia Magazine or newspapers like The New York Times

 

Scholarly Sources

Image of the cover of Journal of Pediatric Nursing, an example of a scholarly publication. Image of the journal Nature, a well-known scholarly journal.

Scholarly sources are...

  • Written by scholars and researchers
  • Written for a scholarly audience
  • Articles are longer than articles found in popular magazines
  • Articles go into depth on a very specific topic
  • Articles report on research studies or experiments
  • Articles are intended to break new ground or fill gaps in human knowledge
  • Articles may contain case studies or literature reviews
  • Usually contain few or no advertisements
  • Examples include Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Pediatric Nursing, and Nature
  • Sources are always cited and lists of references are always included
  • Often go through a peer review process where the articles are read and critiqued by other experts in the same field

Search Like a Pro!

Choose your words 

  • Keywords are descriptive words or important concepts. Search using just keywords rather than full sentences.
  • Omit words like "the", "a", "are", "it" from the search. Most databases do not search for these words and they can impact the search results.
  • Identify keywords from your background research.
  • Brainstorm synonyms for keywords and search all possible concepts.
  • Look up your keywords in the database Subject Headings or Thesaurus section to determine if you are using the correct phrase or spelling. 
  • Put quotation marks around phrases to retrieve results with the exact phrase ("mouse and rat")
  • The asterisk (*) wildcard, also known as the truncation wildcard, is generally used to find word endings. (Metaboli* will find results with metabolism, metabolic, metabolite, metabolites, metabolizing, and metabolically)

Improve Search Results by Connecting Keywords with Boolean Logic

Boolean (pronounced BOO-lee-an) are connectors between search terms. They can be used to make sophisticated searches. They are used to combine different concepts, combine similar concepts or eliminate concepts. Boolean uses three simple terms, AND, OR, NOT. 

  • Use AND to retrieve results with both concepts (mouse AND rat)
  • Use OR to retrieve either keyword (mouse OR rat)
  • Use NOT to omit a keyword (mouse NOT rat)

The areas shaded in black represent the database search results when using a specific Boolean Operator between two keywords. 

A diagram demonstrating Boolean operators. The areas shaded in black represent the database search results when using a specific Boolean Operator between two keywords. When using this image as a teaching material, it is recommended to assign example keywords to A and B to provide concrete examples of how database search results change when using Boolean Operators.

Cecelia Vetter, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Focus Results with Limiters

  • Full Text will limit results to articles with full text. 
  • Peer Reviewed limits results to articles from peer-reviewed journals. 
  • Scholarly Journals limits results to articles from academic publishers of both "peer-reviewed" and not "peer-reviewed" journals intended for an academic audience. 
  • Date Published can be used to limit results to a specified date range.