SSWN 637 - Social Work Research

The filters in the sidebar of QuickSearch and other library databases can help narrow down your search to find more relevant resources.

• Availability:
  • Full text online means just that; you can read the entire journal article or ebook through our online databases.
  • Some databases list abstracts, or summaries, of journal articles to provide a reference to researchers who might want to purchase the journal article later. If you can't access an article, try using the LibKey Nomad extension to find it before placing an ILL request.
• Format:
  • Print books can be accessed on campus or checked out and read at home. You can request a book from any Touro NY site and have it sent to a campus near you.
  • E-books have all the information that their print editions have but have the added benefit of being searchable.
  • Peer Reviewed Journal articles differ from magazine or newspaper articles in that the articles have been reviewed by other scholars in the field to check that the methodology and conclusions make sense and are following best practices
• Publication Date:
  • Filtering by date allows you to look at the most current research in a rapidly changing field, or do a historical survey of changes in a specific subject over time
• Field/Discipline:
  • Filtering by field or discipline can help you find the most relevant materials when a subject is covered in multiple fields. For example, a social worker who is interested in working with the blind is doing very different work than an eye doctor or a teacher working with blind students or a web designer who's trying to make more accessible websites for the blind.
• Language:
  • Most journals we have access to are in English, but if you speak a second language, check out what materials we have in that language for another perspective. You can also use this to filter out languages you don't speak, if you're getting a lot of results you can't read.

Advanced Search Tools

The way you organize your search terms can show how you want your keywords to relate to one another.

• Quotation Marks:
  • You can use quotation marks to group search terms together. 
  • For example, looking up "social work" will only give you results for those two words grouped in that order but if you look up social work with no quotation marks that will include all results with the words social and work in them and might include articles on how social media works, or social networks alongside articles on social work.
• Wildcards: 
  • You can use a wildcard to include multiple variations of a word. In most cases this is an asterisk, but check the help menu of the database you're using. Some databases will now search for multiple variations of the search terms automatically.
  • For example, teach* will provide articles that include the words teach, teaches, teacher, teachers, teaching etc.

Boolean Operators

Using Boolean operators can allow you to combine keywords in the most effective ways. The operators are the words AND, OR, and NOT. These operators indicate how search terms relate to one another. 

• OR broadens your search. 
  • For example, a search for schools OR students will turn up results that mention schools as well as results that mention students. 
• AND narrows your search. 
  • For example, search for student AND teacher will only include results that use both words. 
• NOT also narrows your search. 
  • You can use NOT to exclude search terms. For example, you're getting too many results about medication when you're looking up mental health, so you search for mental health NOT medication.
  • Be careful not to limit your search too far with NOT. Some articles might mention the excluded term briefly but not focus on it.

Combining Search Tools

• You can combine boolean operators with other advanced search tools.
  • For example, a search for "social work" AND school OR students NOT psychiatr* would let you look for articles about social work, rather than social media or social networks, in regards to school or students but that don't mention psychiatry or psychiatric medicine.
• You can use these tools alongside the filters and advanced search tools built into the database you're using.
  • For example, you can use the same search above, and filter by full text online, scholarly and peer reviewed, and within the last ten years to get the most recent scholarly articles on the subject that are available to you as Touro students.

As you read a book or journal article, you can use it as a jumping off point for further research. 

• Find keywords in the text:
  • Jot down keywords you notice in your reading. Different subfields or scholars might use one synonym more commonly.
  • Look for related words or phrases and other angles as you read.
• Use subject headings:
  • Some databases, including our print catalog, use subject headings to categorize books or articles on the same topic
  • Here's an example of subject headings in one catalog entry:
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  • If you click through, you can see nearby subjects with related topics:
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  • When you click through on the subject heading you can see all the books we have listed under that subject. This allows you to essentially virtually browse the bookshelf of all Touro library locations.
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  • Subject headings don't include everything written on a topic or every topic covered in a particular book, but are a good way to continue your research
• Use cited works:
  • If there's a section of an article you find interesting, find the articles the author cited in that section to read more about the topic. You can continue to follow citations back to trace the background for the original author's knowledge.
  • Proquest databases have a tool to find other articles with shared citations. This isn't a complete list but is a great way to find related articles: 
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