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Traditional Academic Database Example: PsycINFO

  • In many traditional academic databases, all items are examined by human indexers, who assign subject terms to each item that characterize the content of the item. The subject terms come from a disciplinary thesaurus developed by each database producer.
  • Your search strategy--
    In traditional academic databases, seek out the subject headings that are used in the database that are synonymous with the topics you are investigating. How?

Example:

Articulate the subject you want to investigate:

How does religiousness impact the sexual behavior of college students?

Identify the words/phrases that constitute the main topics:

How does religiousness impact the sexual behavior of college students?

Start searching using your own vocabulary for your topics


Review some of the full records on the result list and look for PsycINFO subject terms that are synonymous with your search terms 



 

Redo your search combining all the database subject terms you found:

religiosity or "religious beliefs" or "religious affiliation" or "religious practices"

AND

"psychosexual behavior" or "sexual attitudes" or "sexual risk taking" or "premarital intercourse"

AND

"college students"

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