Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.

Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years ago.

Click the limit for PsycArticles to retrieve full-text articles only.

Provides abstracts of journals, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations. Areas covered include psychology and related disciplines. Covers 1887-present.

Provides abstracts of journals, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations. Areas covered include psychology and related disciplines. Covers 1887-present.

Before starting your search:

Set some limits so that you don’t get dissertations, citations in Portuguese, or non-research articles in your results list.

• Click the limits for Journal Articles Only and English Only on the main search screen.
• Scroll all the way down to the section of the page labelled PsycINFO Indexes & Limits
• Find the box labelled Methodology.  Type the text "Empirical Study."  (You can also browse the list of methodologies available in PsycInfo.)
• If you wish, select an age group from the scrolling list.
• Any search you run now will include these limits, unless you clear them.

Choosing subject terms:

• Try several synonyms, connected with OR, to find the maximum number of articles on your topic. 
  (Example: cognitive behavioral therapy OR cognitive therapy OR CBT) 
• If you have a term with several possible endings, use an asterisk to stand for the different endings.  (Example: child* = child, children, childhood, etc.)
• If you are getting too many results, search for your terms in the DE (descriptor fields) or AB (abstract) instead of the default, “terms anywhere”.
• Use the Thesaurus to determine the “descriptors” (subject headings) used in this database for your concept.  Search for terms, click the checkboxes next to the terms you want to search, and then click Search Marked near the top of that window.

Combining searches:

• Conduct one search on each concept, using your synonym list or thesaurus terms.  For example, do one search on “child abuse or family violence or child sexual abuse” and a separate search on “therapist* or social worker* or caseworker*.”
• Go to the Search History tab.  Combine the searches by clicking the boxes next to the line for each search, then click Combine and search using and near the center of the screen.  The result is the list of articles that combine the terms from the checked searches.  You can mix and match the results of various searches this way.

Searching within specific journals:

You may wish to only see articles from specific journals.  To limit your search to those journals:

• Click the Index tab. 
• Change the drop-down box to Journal Name
• Type the journal’s name in the box and click Go to term.
• Click in the boxes next to the title or titles of interest.  Click the Search Marked button (upper right-hand section of the list of titles).
• Optional: Search for other titles of interest if you wish; then combine them into one big set in Search History by clicking the line for each one and then Combine and search using or.
• To combine this journal title search with your concept searches, just click the boxes in Search History for the items you want to combine.  Click Combine and search using and.

Web of Science is comprised of the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Science Citation Index.  It provides citations, abstracts, and full bibliographies for articles from the top 10% of journals in the social sciences.  Use it for three things:

• To find articles on a topic (General Search – search Topics)
• To find recent articles that cite an important earlier article (Cited Ref Search)
• To find articles that share citations with an article that you like (Find Related Articles button)

                                                

The first section of this page defines a systematic review.  Campbell Collaboration reviews say that they use more stringent standards than other systematic reviews.

This page provides an overview of EBP, and offers several tutorials on EBP in relation to specific areas or populations in Social Work.  (See the list of tutorials in the left-hand column.)  BMC subscribes to most of the databases referenced within the tutorials.

Use PsycInfo's "index" for types of methodogies to limit your search result to systematic reviews (or meta-analyses if no systematic review exists).

• Conduct your topic search, using keywords or using the thesaurus to identify the best subject headings
• Click the Index tab.  Use the drop-down menu to switch from General Index to Methodology, then scroll down in the lower frame and click SYSTEMATIC-REVIEW.
• Click the Search History tab.  Check the boxes for your original search, and for Systematic Revew.  Click the and button near the right, to combine the two searches using "and."
• Evaluate the items on the resulting list.

A simple keyword search in PubMed will bring you articles that include the term "systematic review." 

• Conduct your search by entering systematic review and [topic] in the search box, e.g., systematic review and cbt .
• You can try other terms as well, such as evidence-based and [topic] or meta-analysis and [topic]
• You will need to evaluate the articles to see if they meet your standards.

One of the most rigorous publishers of systematic reviews in evidence-based social work.  This site includes information on EBSW and provides summaries and usually the full text of their systematic reviews; however, their library is very small.

Go to this page for detailed information on databases and books that will help you with this part of your project.