Dissertation / Project Support: Literature Searching

Database services enable you to search across and access a huge range of sources including journal articles, book reviews, research reports, policy documents, case studies, legislation and many more types of document.

Database services can be general in coverage or very subject specific. Some services are comprised of many individual databases, which can be searched separately or cross-searched simultaneously. As well as easy to use basic search options, you can use powerful advanced search options in some databases to retrieve relevant documents. Databases also offer options to sort and refine results (e.g. by publication date, whether peer-reviewed, type of document, etc.) or search within results.

By using database services subscribed to by the University you will be able to search more effectively and retrieve materials you might miss otherwise if using general internet search engines.

Database services can be:

• Abstracting databases provide comprehensive indexes to journal articles, books, book chapters and reports. Use references found on these databases to locate full-text documents or use the 'Find it @ Strathclyde' () button to check for electronic and print availability.
• Full text databases provide access to the full text of documents.
• Hybrid services combine abstracts with full-text documents where available.

You always need your University credentials for off campus access to database services and other online resources that the Library subscribes to. You may sometimes need these for on campus access as well.

If you know the general subject area of your research but don’t know which databases are available, then you can look at the relevant subject guide. Subject guides give you a list of key databases in your area:

Alternatively, you can view an A-Z list of databases available to you and select from this:

If you know the name of the database you can search for this using SUPrimo. Simply enter the the name in the search box (using the 'Library Collections' tab) and select search. You can then follow links to the database from the results record:

'Open Access' (OA) is unrestricted access via the internet to peer reviewed scholarly research. This includes: journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, monographs, research data, and open educational resources.

Gold OA is when the author makes their article openly accessible in a journal. This journal may be exclusively OA or it may be a hybrid, with a mixture of OA and subscription-only articles. Gold OA materials can be identified and accessed using commercial databases in the same way as other non-OA academic literature.

Green OA is when the author publishes in a journal and then deposits a version of this article into a subject or institutional repository, such as Strathprints. In order to identify and access Green OA materials you can use individual institutional repositories or services which aggregate repositories' materials in a single searchable resource.

Sources of Green OA

When using a database service, it is important to know what material you are searching across.

While it might be obvious that you won’t find a journal article if searching the UK Parliamentary Papers database, other considerations are less obvious. For example, you may need to check:

• which sources are covered in a database,
• the dates covered and
• which countries are covered.

It is also important to know whether you are searching across full-text documents or abstracts (that is, summaries) as this can not only impact on what documents you retrieve, but also how you can search most effectively.

You can usually find this information by following links within databases to ‘coverage’, ‘content’, ‘information’, ‘about’ , ‘help’ etc.

You can use these connectors to express the relationship between search terms in order to increase or reduce the number of results.

Many are common between different databases, but some vary so always check the connectors you should be using.

Be systematic when constructing searches, as you add terms and connectors take note of the effect they are having on your results.

Below, you can see some of the main connector functions used across databases.

In addition to using connectors, you can also use field and date restrictors to refine your search results.

These options are often available in an ‘Advanced’ search, but may vary depending on the database you are using.

Field restrictors

A ‘field’ restrictor defines the section of a document a search term should occur in – e.g. author, title, subject, anywhere in the free text.

Date restrictors

A date restrictor indicates a specific date or a range of dates for when documents retrieved should have been created.

Once you have your initial search results you can often use functions in the results screen to work with your results and make them more relevant to your research. For example, you may use ‘modify’ and ‘search within results’ functions to alter your initial search. You might also use the sort and narrow (or limit) options to refine your results.

The information and functions available in a results list and individual records vary between database services.

However, other things to take note of in individual records include:

• Whether the results are full-text or abstracts,
• Whether an abstract offers a link to full text,
• If not, can you check for full text using the button?
• Do records offer the function to trace back research by viewing earlier documents references?; or
• trace forward research by viewing later documents citing the one you have found?

Also look out for options to email or download records or export them to reference management software (such as Endnote).

• Who wrote it? What expertise, authority, qualifications or experience does the author have? What else have they written? Is the publisher an academic publisher or a recognised institution? Is an article published in a peer-reviewed journal?
• When was the work published? Are there more recent versions or editions? Has research moved on since publication?
• Where was the work published? Where was it written? Which geographical areas or jurisdictions is it applicable to?
• Why was it written? Is there any bias apparent? Does the author or publisher have a vested interest in the research? Is any bias declared? (That there is bias in a document is not necessarily a reason to dismiss it – but it is something to take into consideration in evaluating the work.)
• What is the content of the source? Is it relevant to your research topic? Is it accurate and well-researched? Does it contain appropriate references and is the methodology clear and reliable?

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When making evaluative judgments, abstracting and indexing databases can help you by providing supplementary information about a document. This means that you can often make an initial judgment about the value of the source before taking the step of accessing and reading the full-text.

An abstract record may provide not only a brief summary of the document, but also information about:

• the author's affiliation (any institution or organisation the author is associated with)
• the date of publication
• the location (either where the document was published or the geographical focus of the text)
• the main subjects and keywords associated with the document
• whether published in a scholarly or peer-reviewed publication

In addition, abstract records may provide citation information:

• how many publications the document you have found cites

and, importantly:

• how many times the document you have found has been cited.

Many subject-specific databases provide abstract records and citation information.

However, key multi-disciplinary abstracting and indexing databases providing citation information include:

Articles in peer-reviewed journals are subject to a process of academic evaluation designed to maintain standards of quality in research. Database services often provide an option to limit results to peer-reviewed journals.

Peer-reviewed articles are generally regarded as being of higher academic quality than non-peer-reviewed articles.

You need to record information that enables you (or someone else) to locate the source again.

You will probably find it best to record information in the form used to cite the source in a reference list, footnotes or a bibliography.

You may also find it useful to record the tools you used to locate sources (e.g. SUPrimo, individual databases, etc.) and searches carried out. (This information is not necessarily included in the final work, but helps you keep track of your research.)

You may already have a method of recording and referencing that you are happy with.

However, you may wish to consider how online tools such as reference management software (bibliographic management software) can help you.

The University Library supports EndNote Online and EndNote (Desktop) packages. You can find out more about these in the following guides:

You can find out more information about:

• why you should reference sources appropriately
• what you need to include in a reference, and
• the different referencing systems used at the University of Strathclyde

from the Referencing guide: