Getting Started - Family Science 188 - Hill - Research Guides at University of Nebraska Kearney (UNK)

Library Search

Subject-Specific Article Databases

Sociology Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Includes Sociological Abstracts and Social Services Abstracts; provides citations and abstracts to the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Contains citations and abstracts to articles in journals, dissertations, and book chapters in all areas of psychology.
Lexis Nexis Academic NOW NexisUNI This link opens in a new window
Use this to find court cases and other legal materials.

What is a peer reviewed journal?

Peer-reviewed journals (also called "scholarly" or "academic" journals) contain original research articles within a specific subject domain.

These articles are reviewed by other experts before publication and share many or all of these qualities:

List authors' names, email addresses, and affiliations (e.g. Univ. of Nebraska-Kearney)
Use section headers (these may vary): Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion
Include tables or figures of statistical data
Cite references to other quality sources

Here are two examples:

NOTE: Some peer-reviewed journals will include literature reviews, book reviews, and opinion essays. None of these present original research however!

This table summarizes the differences between peer-reviewed journals and other periodicals.

If you have further questions, please ask a librarian!

Search Tips

These tips also appear in Lesson 1 of the Library Research Tutorial, and pertain to the "Advanced Search" feature of Library Search, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts.

	AND	OR
How it works:	Search results contain both Term #1 and Term #2	Search results contain either Term #1 or Term #2 (or both)
Effects on search results:	Narrows / Fewer results	Broadens / More results
Examples with diagrams:	Peas AND Carrots Results = the middle area overlapped by both circles	Peas OR Carrots Results = the entire area of both circles

Using an asterisk wildcard (*) at the end of a partial word will broaden search results by including multiple word endings.

When searching for a specific phrase (two or more words together), adding quotation marks around that phrase will typically narrow your search results.

For example:

Using child* will search for all variations of the word child, including children, children's, or childhood.
A search on "sexual strategies theory" -- with the quotation marks included -- will retrieve only those records containing these three words together in this exact order.