Doctoral Social Work Research: Topic Searches

Getting to Know Your Topic

Are you looking for information about the context or history of topic, theory, or issue?  Try these resources for background and general information.  

Developing Keywords / Search Terms

Keywords are...

• A good way to start a search.
• The important concepts in your own words.
• Found anywhere in the article (title, author, subject terms, etc.).
• Very flexible.

Connecting concepts...

• Join similar ideas or alternate terms with "OR."
• Link different parts of your topic with "AND."
• Exclude concepts with "NOT."

Limit to Peer-Reviewed, Referred or Scholarly articles...

• This is part of the publication & editorial process for academic and research journals.  Being peer-reviewed is a sign that a paper's author(s) have done a certain level of due diligence in their work and their research is complete, manages conflicts-of-interest, and is fair and objective.

Narrow the Date Range...

• When looking for Current Research or Evidence-Based Practices limit your date range to the last 3-5 years.

Still not finding anything?  Ask a Librarian!

Below is an example to demonstrate how the main concepts from a research topic or question become keywords and how synonyms or related terms can broaden your search:

Now that you've created your list of keywords, you will need to combine them using BOOLEAN operators (AND and OR):

Searching the Databases

The resources on this page are recommended for when you need to find scholarly research literature and other types of articles for literature reviews, annotated bibliographies, and other projects. 

Interactive APA PsycINFO tutorial

Full Text Access in the Databases

When you're looking at search results in a database you're going to see a few different ways to get to the full article, usually either...

 or   

Both of these will take you to the article!

Click the Find Full-Text button and a new tab or window will open. In this tab, your article will load automatically. You will also see a YELLOW ribbon with a link saying "Go To Full Text Finder Results"--click the link if the article doesn't load on its own.

Linking Google Scholar to the Simmons Library

Google works with libraries to determine which journals and papers they've subscribed to electronically, and then links to articles from those sources when they're available. Once you configure the Library Links settings in Google Scholar, links to the full text of articles will display in your Google Scholar results when they are available through Simmons Library.

Use Google Scholar From On-Campus

      To make these links appear, just access Google Scholar from any Simmons computer and the links will automatically be included.

Configure Google Scholar From Off-Campus

1. Click on Settings link in the upper right corner of Google Scholar.
2. Choose "Library Links" on the left, type Simmons University and click the "Search" button.
3. If prompted, check "Simmons University - Check Simmons Full Text"  from the list of results.
4. Click the blue "Save" button.
5. Start searching Google Scholar with links to our library's resources (you may need to log in to access these resources).