Library Tutorial for Public Health

Last update: 14 September 2007,
by Maureen Bell

Section 7. Searching for journal articles on a topic

Warning Do not use the Library catalogue for this search, as it lists journals but not individual journal articles.

Instead you will need to use databases to find details of journal articles on your subject. You'll find a list of databases of interest for public health on my web page, and there is additional help for searching for material for essay topics here. I've concentrated on PubMed (Medline), which is the database you will probably use most frequently.

Database checklist

When using a new database it's a good idea to check its features using the Help option.

1. Use of Boolean (logical) operators - in most databases they can be in lower case, but PubMed requires that they are in upper case, so it's important when searching PubMed to use AND, OR, NOT to connect your search terms. Click here for PubMed's explanation of how Boolean logic works. (If you click on the Next link at the left of the Boolean logic page you'll go to a page which provides an animated demonstration.)

2. How do you truncate terms to search for plurals etc.? Some databases such as Academic OneFile have multiple options, whereas PubMed uses only one truncation symbol.

3. Is there a thesaurus which will allow you to use a standardised language to search? How does it work?
Click here for an explanation of PubMed's thesaurus (which is called MeSH)

4. How do you search for articles by an author, or in a particular journal?

5. How do you display references, or mark them for saving, printing, or emailing to yourself?

6. Can you link to the full text of articles, or will you need to find print articles in the Library?

Search Strategy

Before you search for information you'll need to formulate a search strategy. Below are some tips on how to do this.

1. Identify the key concepts .

2. Work out alternative terms for these concepts.

3. Decide whether you want to restrict your search to a certain population or group

4. Decide whether you want to restrict your search to a particular type of article - eg. systematic reviews.

5. Remember that practice helps, and that there is no such thing as the perfect search - a strategy which may be fine for an essay may be totally inadequate for a thesis topic.

6. You may find it helps to clarify your thinking if you use a logic grid, in which you group related concepts or synonyms - see the example below

Supposing you want to find information about socioeconomic factors and weight problems in adolescent girls. Below are some possible options for searching - can you think of more? As there are four distinct concepts involved in this search we will use four columns

A	B	C	D
socioeconomic factors social class employment poverty income unemployment	weight gain obesity weight loss	adolescent* teenager* adolescence	girl* female*

You would need to OR the individual words in each column, and then AND the groups of words together - remembering to use brackets to preserve the logic of your search. Click here to check on Boolean logic (the use of logical operators, and the importance of brackets in search strategies).

(socioeconomic factors or social class or employment or poverty or income or unemployment) and (weight gain or weight loss or obesity) and (adolescent* or teenager* or adolescence) and (girl* or female*)

You would probably decide that you wanted only articles that dealt with adolescents, not articles that looked at people of all ages, and you would therefore simply add not adult* at the end of your search.

Search results

The purpose of searching a database is to get a list of citations telling you where to look for articles on your subject.

The important parts of citations are:- author(s) of article, article title, journal title, volume number, issue number, date, and page numbers - so make sure you save, print, or download all of these details before you look for the journal.

Check how to save, print, or email the results. Saving them is a good idea, as it won't cost you anything, and you'll then have correct details for including in the bibliography in your essay.

Finding the full journal article

A database citation may give a link to a full electronic article, often in .pdf format which you can save or print directly.
If there is no link, or a faulty link, the Library may still have the journal in electronic or paper format - so always search the Library catalogue under the journal title. There are instructions on how to do this in Section 3.

For an electronic journal link to the appropriate volume number, issue number, and pages

For a print journal you'll need to make a note of the location and call number, then go to the shelves to find the volume number, issue number, and pages that you need.

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