Social Work Research Guide

Here are some tips for searching library databases:

• Use AND to combine your concepts, e.g., child abuse AND alcohol (AND must be in caps)
• Use OR to combine synonyms, related terms, e.g., domestic violence OR family violence (OR must be in caps)
• Parentheses allow complex queries to be layered, e.g., child abuse AND (alcohol OR substance abuse)
• Use the * (asterik)  to search for the root word and any ending, e.g., parent* will retrieve parent, parents, parenthood, parenting.
• To search for an exact phrase, place the phrase in quotation marks, e.g., "attachment theory"

Some databases provide the full text of an article, while others provide only citations or abstracts. If you don't see the PDF icon or linking to the full text of an article, click the  button.

If Rutgers has electronic availability to the article, you will gain access.

If the article is not available at Rutgers, you will be able to request an electronic copy through an "Article Delivery" link.

To find a specific journal go the Advanced Search in Quicksearch and:

• Select Title from the first pulldown menu on the left
• Type the journal name next and select  Journals from the Resource Type menu on the right
• Select the Search link

When searching for one-word journal titles (Life, Science, Nature, etc.), you may have better results using the Basic Search

To find a specific article ("known" citation) either:

• Use the Basic Search and enter the article title in quotes (")

  or

• Use Citation Lookup-for best results, enter the title and any unique identifier such as an ISSN, DOI, or PMID.

Visit the library database page to find many databases organized by subject area. Use the "subject" dropdown to narrow down the databases for your field.