Research Guides: Theory Informed Direct Practice: SSWG 5101 and SSWG 5102: Find Articles

Database Language

Platform-wide thesaurus and subjects

The ProQuest and EBSCOhost interface or platforms (multi-disciplinary database aggregators) provide full-text access, each has a platform-wide thesaurus that applies to ALL of its databases.

ProQuest Thesaurus on ProQuest Social Science Premium and ProQuest Central (all collections). Learn more with ProQuest platform thesaurus video and Proquest transcript.
- Browse ProQuest list of databases or select change databases within the platform
EBSCOhost thesaurus. Learn more with Browse Subject Terms Tutorial video, and EBSCOhost advanced search video

Gale has platform-wide subjects (located top right). There is also Topic Finder. Its multi-subjects database is Academic OneFile.

Specialized thesaurus

These thesauri are useful for Social Work and may be viewed on the website or platform. Temple AccessNet ID is required to access ProQuest databases.

Social Services Abstract - ProQuest: Sociological Thesaurus
PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) ProQuest database inexes public and social policies and covers international sources: Politics and Policy Thesaurus
PubMed: Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). MeSH tutorials and videos
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center): ERIC Thesaurus FAQ and ERIC Thesaurus video
APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (via EBSCOhost). You can also search and learn more at the APA website for Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms

Multi-disciplinary Databases - Full text

ProQuest Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
Social Science Premium Collection contains international literature in social sciences, including politics, public policy, sociology, social work, anthropology, criminology, linguistics, library science, and education.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete provides full text scholarly publications and full text journals for academic areas of study.

Cited Reference Searching

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. It also includes access to EndNote Online.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Note: Follow these instructions to link Google Scholar with Temple's resources.
Google Scholar provides search for scholarly literature. It covers disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

Subject Indexing Databases

ERIC [via ProQuest] This link opens in a new window
ERIC [via ProQuest] provides access to education-related literature. ERIC provides coverage of journal articles, conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
APA PsycInfo contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations, all in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business and law.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 37 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) is the largest component of PubMed and consists primarily of journal citations; articles indexed with MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and curated with funding, genetic, chemical and other metadata.
Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Social Services Abstracts provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts provides coverage of the world's literature on sociology and applied aspects of sociology.
Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts contains journals from various countries focusing on health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education.

Databases for Specific Populations

Child Care & Early Education Research Connections
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections (Research Connections) is an online library of research relevant to the work of child care and early education (CCEE) policymakers, consultants, professionals supporting the CCEE workforce, and researchers
Child Welfare Information Gateway
Provides access to print and electronic publications covering a wide range of topics from prevention to permanency, including child welfare, child abuse and neglect, adoption, search and reunion, and more. Use the "Library Search" feature to find citations to journal articles, books, and evaluation reports on these topics.

Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women's Issues This link opens in a new window
Contemporary Women's Issues provides access to global information on women's issues. It includes journals, newsletters, and research reports from non-profit groups, government and international agencies.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
Covering gender related issues.
LGBTQ+ Life This link opens in a new window
Covers journals, magazines, newspapers, and books related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual studies.
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Military & Government Collection provides access to periodicals, academic journals and other content pertinent to all branches of the military.

Ten Finding Tips

In addition to Library Search and talking with Subject Librarians, use the library research guides (or LibGuides) and databases and resources listed on this page to search and identify journal articles, books, book chapters and other publications in Social Work and related fields.

Use all relevant terms or keywords and, if available, the database controlled vocabulary or indexing and cataloging terms ( thesaurus, subject headings, descriptors) in advanced search. Subject dictionaries, thesauri, and Credo Reference can help identify concepts and words for searching. These guides maybe useful:

Social Work topics keywords prepared by a Washington University librarian.
Examples: Abuse/Domestic Violence; Addiction; Ages; Barriers; Diversity; Homeless; Housing;; Police Violence; Poverty; Social Determinants of Health;
Topics in APA PsycInfo of Relevance to Social Work
APAPsycInfo uses the APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms. APA Publishing Training video.
PubMed has Automatic Term Mapping, matching user terms to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Topic-Specific PubMed Queries provide useful MeSH and keywords for select topics, including healthcare disparities, and population health, electronic health records.
Web of Science has "Social Work" as a subject category and micro topics such as Homeless and Intimate Partner Violence. Browse and search meso and micro subjects/ Download the 2024 schema. Download the Micro-topics updates Learn more about topics schema
Subject Headings for Social Work or search the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
External library guide to subject headings with links to the PDF of LCSH by letter.
Science.gov Topic Pages (Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites)
Social Determinants of Health, Health Disparities, and Health Equity guide

Search one concept at a time and then combine them using "AND" or "OR". Most databases automatically add "AND" between terms so AND may not be needed.

Parentheses can be used to specify the search order for operators in a search string. If not, for example, in ProQuest and Web of Science, the order is PRE, NEAR, AND, OR, NOT.
Watch Build Better Searches in Web of Science (5 min), to know how to use truncation, operators, parentheses (to set order for operators) and proximity. These functions are similar for other databases.
Be aware that Google operators work differently than those in library databases.

Use database fields and filters, such as Date, Peer-Reviewed, Source Type, and Methodology to focus and narrow your search.
Check documentation to see which fields are mandatory or required to appear in every record. In APA PsycINFO, for example, the only required fields in every record are title, abstract, author, keywords, publication date, publication type, release date, unique identifier. PubMed check tags appearing in nearly all indexed records include human, animal, male, female, pregnancy, age. These tags are ignored if not mentioned in the article.
Geographic location: For library catalogs, use location field and the geographic subject headings. For APA PsycINFO search in geographic location field. For ERIC, there are location, laws, polices and programs and assessment and surveys identifiers.
Use the How to apply methodology filters and Find Empirical and Evidence-Base Articles guides.
Use database guides, tutorials, search tips, tools, and help to efficiently search, filter, save/download, cite and more.

Main database platform guides: ProQuest, EBSCOhost, CINAHL(EBSCO), Embase, Web of Science, Web of science Help documentation, Web of Science AI enabled topic and keywords search, Gale, ERIC, GovInfo,
PubMed, PubMed publication types; How PubMed Works; Searching when MeSH changes
- The EBSCOhost libguide covers the upcoming new platform. For the existing platform, view the 4 minute video, but note that the default shown is the basic search, whereas the default at Temple is the advanced search.
  Advanced Searching on EBSCOhost.
- APA PsycInfo Beginner Search video tutorial; APA PsycInfo Advanced Search
- APA EBSCOhost Quick Reference Guide PDF
For Temple Libraries tutorials and upcoming workshops: Enter the database name or other search term in Library Search and look at results under Library Website.
Use library research guides for courses and subjects to identify relevant databases and resources.
Google Search Tips: List of Operators and Google Search help
This library guide from McGill University has operators and searching tips for many databases
https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/knowledge-syntheses/search-tips

Follow linkages, such as subject, keyword, author, title or series, organization links and links to Similar Titles, Citations or Cited By, References, and More Like This.

Use tools like Google Scholar and Web of Science Cited Reference Search
Learn more with our Chasing Citation guide and Citation Chasing Video Tutorial

Register/Create account and login to save your search history and create alerts.
Select the Find Full Text links to get the entire source for non-full text indexing databases.
Link Google Scholar to Temple libraries to get full text within our collections.
To save time, search the entire ProQuest Social Sciences Premium collection

Some database specific advanced filtering capability and thesaurus terms may not be available.
For the broadest ProQuest platform wide search, use ProQuest Academic One , which includes ProQuest Central (nearly all disciplines/subjects and different media types)

Use Browzine to browse and read scholarly articles in Social Work journals.
To create an account with the Browzine App, select Temple University and login with your TU AccesNet ID.
Target Core Journals in Social Work and search all relevant databases.