Databases

Search Engine vs Databases

Should I use a Search Engine or a Database?

It really depends on your purpose and intentions, but probably both is a good idea. Start with Search Engines for a general overview, but think critically about the webpages you visit and assess their credibility. If you want to include great quality information that goes deeper into a subject and gives you the ingredients to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills, then you need to dig into databases.   

TIP: Wherever you search for information, if it is for an assessment task, download the Research Process Journal template and keep a record of websites, journal articles and whatever you think you are likely to use in your assessment task. The journal helps you keep track of where the good information is and how you found it. 

Free Access to Databases Here:

Video: Introduction to Accessing and Using State Library of NSW databases

Database Search Tools and Strategies

A simple keyword search is often enough. Try combinations of keywords and see if you can find what you need.

OR

If your keyword search has too few results and you want to make your search less specific, use the OR operator, it widens results. In the example in Table 1, "enterprise or business" will return results that have either enterprise or business, and results that have both enterprise or business.

AND

If your keyword search has too many results and you want to narrow your search to be more specific, use AND. The example above will only return results that have both economy and finance.

NOT

If you want to exclude particular results or keywords from your search, use NOT. In the example above, you will find search results that have enterprise, but not star trek. This would help if you were searching for information about enterprises, but did not want search results that mention Star Trek.

When you use combinations of operators in a search it is called "nesting". You must either use the advanced search interface or use rounded brackets, eg:

(economy OR enterprise) AND capitalism NOT Star Trek

 -this search above is interpreted at the results can include the word economy or enterprise, it must include capitalism, it must not contain Star Trek. 

Using Truncation

Wildcard Searching for Multiple Characters

By adding an asterisk (*) to a partially finished word, the database will search for all variations of that word.

For Example: 

politic* = politic, politics, political, politician, politicians etc.

life* = lifestyle, lifeless, lifelong, lifeline etc.

This is a way of opening up search results and simultaneously searching for all the variables of words. 

Wildcard Searching for Single Characters

By adding a question mark (?) to a word, the database will search for all variations of that word.

For Example: 

wom?n = women, woman etc.

Keyword vs Exact Phrase Searching

Your typical search is a keyword search, typing: global economic superpower will search for global AND economic AND superpower. So the three keywords will appear somewhere in the article, they may or may not be in sequence or even in the same paragraph. 

There are two ways to create an exact phrase search: you can uses quotation marks around a sequence of words in a search, eg. "global economic superpower" will only give you results that have this sequence of three words occurring in that exact order, eg "China is a rising global economic superpower"; alternatively in an advanced search change the button "keyword" to "exact phrase". Different databases may vary this term.

Exact phrase searches are great for pinpointing very specific chunks of information.

Field Searching

In addition to searching Keywords, you have options to search for other fields including Author, Subject, Article Title etc. 

This can be used to widen searches or narrow them.  

Search Limiters

These are great for narrowing searches and finding results that will help you. These typically appear on the lefthand side of the database. Limiters are often titled things like "Refine Your Search". They include options like: Peer-Reviewed Only, Full Text Only, Abstract Only, Date Range, Journal Only, Subject etc.

Limiting search results to include only things like "full-text" articles can be very helpful and speed your research process. "Date range" can also be helpful if you only want to find historical articles, or recent articles.

Citation Tools

Many databases have free citation generators within them. Look for buttons labelled "Cite" or "Cite This" and typically you will be given a few options if citation formats. Save these citations straight to a doc for use if you decide to use the reference in your writing task.

Unless your teacher has instructed you, use Harvard (Author-Date) for a citation style.

Tip 1: Your free access to databases through the State Library of NSW and UOW may provide you access to different databases. It's worth exploring multiple databases.

Tip 2: Databases tend to specialise in subject areas, sometimes multiple subject areas; so a database that might be great for your Biology assignment may be terrible for your English assignment.

Tip 3: On the database search page, there are always different tools and options to refine your search. Try using these to pinpoint the information you are looking for.  

Justifying Your Sources

Do you want to learn how to use metrics like 'Journal Impact Factor' and 'h-index' to gather the information that will contribute to evaluating articles? Have a look at this university guide to metrics. 

Tools to find data about authors and their publishing statistics:

Scopus Author Search

Tools to find out data about sources of information, mostly published journals:

Scopus Source Search (#Note: the "Subject Area" button is a drop-down menu that can be changed to other fields including "Title" which would include the journal title.