Database Searching Help
11. Apr, 2012 
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How Do I Search for Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed Articles?
EBSCO Databases (EBSCOMegaFILE, Academic Search Premier, any option in the Journals/Articles section with a Blue “E” to the left of its name): In the Advanced Search option (located underneath the main search box when you first click on the page), there will be a checkbox for “Scholarly/Peer-reviewed articles.” You can also limit the “Material Type” to Journal Articles.
JSTOR does not have a limit option for Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed since that is already the type of items on that site. However, if you use the “Advanced Search” option (underneath the main search box on the main page of JSTOR), you can limit to Articles using a checkbox. This option will eliminate book reviews from your results.
I Get TONS of Results in my Database Searches. How Can I Fix That?
The Advanced Search option (located underneath the main search box in each database) will let you limit your search using the following options:
- Connecting several search words together, putting each into its own search box. You can use up to seven search boxes connected together! (Example: “social media” AND Facebook AND teacher if you’re interested in articles about teachers using Facebook)
- Limit by date: Certain classes will ask for articles that have been written in the past five years. This option is also a good choice if you’re working with something that’s fairly recent, such as South Sudan, which became a country in 2011.
- Limit to “Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Articles” (Checkbox)
- If you’re using a phrase, put it in quotes (Example “social network”, “developmental psychology”)
- Each database has a “Subject Guide” or “Thesaurus.” These words are the words the people who create these records use to arrange the articles. Searching for these words (switching the drop-down box next to the search boxes where you put the words to “SU-Descriptors”) will give you very strong results!
