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Find quality information

How to find quality information for academic purposes, including databases, specific information formats, Google Scholar and the web, research alerts and evaluating information.

Field searching

References in the database are normally split up into fields, such as:

  • author
  • title
  • journal title
  • subject.

If the database has an advanced search option, you may be able to restrict your search to a particular field. If your search terms appear in the title or subject of the reference, the reference is likely to be more relevant.

Field searching can also be used to distinguish between, for example:

  • shakespeare as an author
  • shakespeare as a subject.

Subject headings

Subject headings, sometimes called subject descriptors or keywords, are standard terms used to describe the content of publications. Using subject headings can make searching easier and more reliable.

Some databases list all these terms in a separate system in the database, often called a thesaurus. The thesaurus may have an elaborate structure of broader, narrower and related terms, which will help you to search very precisely.

The thesaurus may allow you to explode a term. This means that you are searching on your selected term and also on all narrower terms which have been linked to that term in the thesaurus.

Check the database's Help section for a thesaurus or subject descriptors.

Snowballing using subject headings

Snowballing (or pearl growing) is when you use a relevant reference you have already found to help you locate similar references in the database.

If you find a relevant reference in a database which has subject headings, you can often select the subject headings to find other references with the same subject heading to make your search more thorough.

Citation searching

Citation searching is another method for finding similar or related references. There are a number of methods which use the citation links between references to help find additional references. These methods may be referred to as reference checking, citation searching, citation chaining, and cited reference searching.

Reference checking

Check the reference list or bibliography in any relevant references you have already located. The references you find will be older than your relevant reference, so this method is sometimes called backward citation searching.

Forward citation searching

Check for references which have cited your relevant reference. The references you find will be newer than your relevant reference which is why it is called forward citation searching.

Use citation databases for forward citation searching

Some databases will keep track of all the citation links between documents. In the database:

  1. Search for your relevant reference.
  2. Then check for 'cited by', 'times cited' or something similar.

Google Scholar is a very good database for forward citation searching: