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

Library Search

Subject-Specific Article Databases

Sociology Collection (ProQuest)
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
Contains citations and abstracts to articles in journals, dissertations, and book chapters in all areas of psychology.
Lexis Nexis Academic NOW NexisUNI
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.