Databases and Search Tips - SWRK 653 - Research: Program Evaluation for SWRK

Literature Review Examples

Social Work and the Emerging Opioid Epidemic: A Literature Review
Shier, Micheal L, Graham, John R, & Keogh, Jennifer M. (2019). Social Work and the Emerging Opioid Epidemic: A Literature Review. The British Journal of Social Work.
Social work with groups of adolescents: a literature review
Ducca Cisneros, Linda Vanina, & Arias Astray, Andrés. (2019). Social work with groups of adolescents: a literature review. Social Work with Groups (New York. 1978), 43(3), 1–16.
From placement to prison: The path to adolescent incarceration from child welfare supervised foster or group care
Jonson-Reid, M. (n.d.). From placement to prison: the path to adolescent incarceration from child welfare supervised foster or group care. Children and Youth Services Review., 22(7), 493–516.

Aspects of a literature review

Empirical Research
by William Cuthbertson Last Updated Feb 2, 2024 464 views this year

Databases

OneSearch This link opens in a new window
Search for articles, books, course reserves, and more; all in one! Provides access to the majority of the library’s resources from a single entry point. OneSearch including the library's physical items and most of the library’s electronic content.

Databases are available to search on your topic. Each one indexes unique journals and either provides a summary (abstract) or full text of the article. If full text is not available, look for the FIND IT button or link to direct you where the full text is available.

Social Work Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts professional, scholarly social work journal articles.
SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Indexes, abstracts, and provides some full text of journals in all sub-disciplines of sociology. Also includes full text for 545 books and monographs, and full text for 6,601 conference papers.
ERIC This link opens in a new window
(Educational Resources Information Center) An online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, providing free access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials.
APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations devoted to the peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals.
Academic Search This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary database providing full text for more than 4,600 journals, including full text for nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. EBSCO
CINAHL This link opens in a new window
Indexes over 4,900 nursing and allied health journals, with cited references from more than 1,400 journals; provides full-text access to more than 770 journals. Also offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, audiovisuals, and book chapters. Covers a wide range of topics including nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Keyword Searching

The common way to search databases is by keyword. Use these main terms rather than asking questions or full sentences.

When looking for books or articles try to narrow down your subject.

For Example:

First search the broad term foster care.
The results returned will have the keyword foster care somewhere in the record.
If you have too many results, use limiters such as publication date. Limiters allow you to focus your search.
The result should be more items on your topic, with less searching.

Additonally, combine terms with AND, OR, NOT example:

Foster Care AND Programs (will narrow your search)
Foster Care OR Foster Children (will expand your search)
Foster Care NOT Residential Care (will narrow search)

Searching Social Work Abstracts- Subject/Classification

Search Tips

Brainstorm synonyms for your concept. Different databases use different words for the same concept. Searching for alternative words improves your chances of success.

Modify your searches based on your results. If you find articles that reflect your interests, redo your search using words that appear in the title, subject headings, abstract, or full text of that article.

Use the asterisk (*) to find various word endings. (i.e., child* finds child, children or childhood)

Use parentheses "" to search for phrases. (i.e, "foster care")

Use the Boolean search operators: and, or, not, near.

AND Reduces the number of search results by requiring more than one term to appear in the same article. (i.e., foster care and aging out)

OR Expands the number of search results by expanding the possible matches to include either one or the other term. (i.e., teen* or adolescent*)

NOT Reduces search results to omit references to articles with certain words that have nothing to do with your topic. (i.e., planning not wedding)

Put it all together to make a sophisticated search:
(transition housing) and foster care and (teen* or adolescent*)

Interlibrary Services

Interlibrary Services (ILL) is available to request books, articles, and other items that are not available in the library collection. Often the ILL link is provided directly in the database and is the easiest way to submit a request. Follow the "FIND IT" link and click the link Request your item through Interlibrary Services.

To use the system, you must first set up an account. To directly logon go to Interlibrary Services