SOWK 5012 - Social Work Research Foundations

Search Strategies

Developing a good search strategy is important

Once you've decided which terms are the most useful for your search, combine them in a Boolean search.

Use keywords (or MESH terms) only, DO NOT search using a full sentence.

Video on using MESH terms in PubMed

Video on using Subject Headings/MESH Terms in CINAHL

MESH Terms Guide

KEYWORDS

Controlled vocabulary the brackets keep synonyms together
the * will look for alternate endings
AND/OR will modify a component to narrow or expand your results (the capitalization of AND/OR varies from database to database, it is better to get in the habit of capitalizing them)
NOT allows you to search for one term but not include another. i.e. psychology NOT developmental
If you have a multi-word phrase, putting quotes around it will search specifically for that phrase, in that sequence, side by side such as "Human Rights".

Some databases have a list of terms used to index articles in a consistent manner. These terms can be used to search for relevant material.

This list may be referred to as:

Thesaurus
Subject Headings
Taxonomy
Synonyms

Filters

Use database filters to narrow down and focus the results you find. For example:

Peer-Reviewed Articles
Category or Topic
Document Type
Date
Search within

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO BREAKING YOUR SEARCH QUESTION INTO A SEARCH PHRASE

Step 1: Write your topic out in sentence or question form

How do Canadian social workers treat teenage drug abuse?

Step 2: Break your topic sentence up into main ideas or keywords - avoid using verbs. Use nouns instead.

Canada, social work, teenage, drug abuse

Step 3: Think of synonyms or alternate words to describe each concept

teenage - juvenile, youth

Tip: Use dictionaries, encyclopedias, or a thesaurus to find alternate words.

Tip: Discover new search terms : As you read through a list of search results, take note of any new terms that are relevant to your topic. Search using these new terms.

Step 4: Add "Boolean operators" (AND, OR) to make a complete search statement

Use AND to limit or narrow your search to results that mention all of your keywords.
- Canada AND social work AND teenage AND drug abuse
Use OR to broaden your search to include synonyms.
- (teenage OR youth OR juvenile) - Note: OR terms must be bracketed.
NOT allows you to search for one term but not include another. i.e. psychology NOT developmental
CAPITALIZE your Boolean terms

Step 5: Add wildcards to search for all possible word endings

A wildcard is usually represented by a *. This is also called truncation.

(teenage* OR youth OR juvenile*) AND Canad* AND "drug abuse"

Step 6: Consider Key Phrase searching

Some databases search each word separately. To ensure that your words are evaluated as a key phrase, enclose them in double quotation marks.

"drug abuse"

Step 7: Evaluate your results

If you are finding too many or too few results, try these tricks:

To broaden your search (find more):

Find synonym for each keyword.
Search for a broader concept ('dog' instead of 'poodle').
Use wildcards/truncation.

To narrow your search (find fewer):

Add another concept or idea to your search with AND
Use more specific words ('poodle' instead of 'dog').

Find Journal Articles

Start with the Omni search box to search across most of the library's databases. Use the main keywords from your research topic. As you retrieve results, use the filters on the left of the screen to narrow or broaden your search. Guide on finding articles in OMNI.

Specialized databases you should use:

The main databases for Social Work:

Special topics

Canadian content: CPI-Q and Canadian Business and Current Affairs Database
Children: Child Development & Adolescent Studies and Child Welfare Information Gateway
Criminal Justice: Criminal Justice Abstracts
Education: ERIC
Gender and women's studies: Gender Studies database and Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts
Health (including women's health): Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) and PubMed and Scopus
History: America History and Life (covers Canada and the US)
Human rights: HuriSearch
Indigenous peoples: Bibliography of Native North Americans or America History and Life
Mental Health: PsycINFO
Multidisciplinary databases: JSTOR and Google Scholar. More multidisciplary databases.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): PTSDpubs and PscyINFO
Political Economy: EconLit
Policy-related literature: PAIS Index and Business Source Complete
Poverty: Sociological Abstracts and World Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology Abstracts
Social change, social welfare, social care and social services: Sociological Abstracts and Sociology Database

Tip: Most databases provide a way to restrict the results of a search to peer-reviewed or academic articles. This may be done differently from database to database.

Do not limit yourself to these databases. Check Databases by Subject page to see where there may be more databases that suit your research.

Dissertations and theses databases

Get material from other libraries

How do I get material the Library does not own?

You can order journal articles and print material directly from OMNI now. This service is free and has a very quick turnaround.

You must be logged in to your Library Account to use this service.

Journal articles will be emailed to you and can be available within a few hours.

Print material will be available at the Library Services Desk and you will be notified by email. You can even have your material sent to another university for pick up. For example, if you live downtown, you may want to have your material sent to the University of Ottawa Library.

Watch this video to see how it is done!

If you need assistance with this, contact the Library Services Desk:

Library.Services@carleton.ca
613-520-2600 ext. 2734

Grey Literature

See the Grey Literature Pages

Think Tanks

See the Think Tanks Page

Custom Google Think Tanks Search Engine

Using the Web to find Grey Literature

Google Advanced

restricting content to file type
- type in your topic and then "filetype:pdf" or "filetype:doc"

restricting content to site .org or .gov sites
- type in your topic and then either "site:.org" OR "site:.gov"

restricting content to searching titles only
- type search "intitle: "climate change""

to exclude words from your search
- to do this search use operator "-" (minus) eg. jaguar speed -car

Search for sites that link to site of interest:
- link to:academyhealth.org

Find quick information about a site:
- info:kff.org

Use Social Media:

Often organizations and individuals make information about their publications available via their social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.).

Use other Search Engines:

Use Other Search Engines

Use other search engines to get broader results. For example, Duck Duck Go does not collect user information and therefore results are not filtered based on your personal profile.

Bing
DuckDuckGo
Internet Archives (researching old websites, but it’s so much more)
Search Encrypt (uses local encryption to ensure your searches remain private)
CCSearch (copyright-free content)
Gibiru
Mednar (deep web search engine, medically-focused)

Use OMNI to search for Grey Literature

Do your Boolean search
Choose resource type - choose only those resources types that are considered Grey Literature (see Grey Literature Pages above)

See "Special Topics" on the Social Work Subject Guide

Use other Databases

Many databases allow you to limit your search by content/resource type. Check individual databases: Databases or Databases by Subject

Explore the following databases:

Policy Index File (Premier resource for policy grey literature)
Dissertations and Theses Global
IEEE Xplore Digital Library (narrow down to "conference publications")
CURVE (Carleton University Repository Virtual Environment)
Scopus (A multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of research literature and web sources)
Policy Commons (International think tank publications)
Web of Science (multidisciplinary suite of databases)
WorldCat (covers resources outside of Carleton's collection)

Cited Reference Searching

Citation Management and Data Analysis Software