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A database is a collection of information (e.g. journal articles, references to book chapters, newspaper articles, directives, full-text patents) which you can search in a number of ways such as by keyword, author, title. They are very useful for finding information on specific topics for your assignments and dissertations.
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Go to Advanced Search Tips for a guide to searching selected databases more effectively.
Go to Connecting search terms with AND, OR, NOT for a guide to combining search terms using Boolean logic functions.
The main health and medical databases use controlled vocabulary to organise content;
Medline (OVID) uses MeSH (medical subject headings)
CINAHL Ultimate uses CINAHL Headings
EMBASE (OVID) uses Emtree
PsycInfo (OVID) uses Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
These are lists of standardised, preferred terms used by each database to organise and describe topics, regardless of the terminology used by the article’s authors.
Click here to view OVID's quick tutorial on special techniques in Medline including MESH headings - recommended.
To make the best use of Google, we recommend using Google Scholar. This limits results to higher quality academic resources; such as peer reviewed journals and research papers.
Looking for help on how to get the best out of Google Scholar? Take a look at Google Scholar's Search Tips.
Want to check if our Library can provide full text from Scholar? Follow these steps:
Click on the Google Menu icon in the top left corner of the screen:
Next click on the Google Settings icon, 
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Select Library Links and search for ulster university.
Save the preferences displayed. This way, you will see links to full text within our electronic journals collection in your searches.
We also have a short video to explain how to set this up.
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Looking for a few journal articles to get your research started? USearch is a great place to start. |
Guides
PubMed is the US National Library of Medicine's information portal. It is a very good source of reliable scholarly, academic material such as journal articles, theses and reports. It will link to freely available material where available but you may be asked to pay for full text.
Looking for help on how to get the best out of PubMed? Take a look at the PubMed user guide.
