When deciding where to begin your search for peer-reviewed literature in the Walden Library, you’ll want to consider your topic and what database, or combination of databases, will give you the most relevant results. It’s not only how you search but where you search that will influence the type and number of results the database returns.
This guide will walk you through a search in two subject-specific databases, which search journals related to that subject area and compare those results to a search in Thoreau, the Library’s multi-database search tool.
Let's use this topic for our search example: What are the risk factors associated with domestic violence?
Subject-specific databases can be found under the Research by Subject button on the Library homepage. We're going to look at our topic from a psychology perspective and criminal justice perspective, so we'll choose a database from each of those subjects. These links will bring you to that subject research page where you can choose a database to search.
On the Psychology Research Page look for the Psychology articles, journals, & books section and click the Psychology databases drop-down menu. From here we'll choose APA PsycInfo.
On the Criminal Justice Research Page look for the Criminal Justice articles, journals, & books section and click the Criminal Justice databases drop-down menu. From here we'll choose the Criminal Justice Database.
Thoreau is the search box at the top of the Library homepage. You can search using the main search box or by clicking on the Advanced Search link.
Database searches follow this format: one idea or concept per search box. Synonyms and similar concepts can be added to the same search box separated by OR.
Let's break up our search into its main ideas and brainstorm synonyms: What are the risk factors associated with domestic violence?
There are also three limiters you'll want to consider as well which can be found beneath the search boxes in each database. Select these options when you set up each of your searches:
These are the search parameters we used in each database:
These are the approximate results you will get in each:
You'll see the fewest results in the Criminal Justice Database which is not surprising since it's searching a relatively specific subject area. You could quickly review all the results without needing to modify the search (unless the results were not relevant).
APA PsycInfo has nine times the results, again, which isn't surprising because it's one of the primary databases used in psychology research. Since there are quite a few results, you'll want to consider limiting the search further. You could modify your search by:
Thoreau has the most results because it's searching the entire Library. It looks like there is a lot of literature on this topic even within just the last 5 years. It would be too difficult to review all these results, so you would want to consider limiting the search using the same suggestions above for APA PsycInfo. If you started your search here, another search strategy would be to move into a subject-specific database which would quickly limit your results.
OASIS