Searching for information
Selecting databases to search
Bond University Library provides access to full text articles from over 22000 journals in hundreds of databases.
- Library Research Guides provide recommended resources for your particular subject area
- The research databases and tools list includes has filters for subject area
- Your faculty librarian can recommend databases relevant for your research topic
- Look for a particular database on the research databases and tools list
To find a specific journal, use Library Search with a pre-search filter for Journals, or use the content type facet to limit your results to journals.
The quickest way to search for journal articles is to use Library Search (also available from the search box on the library home page).
Library Search indexes most of our databases, but it does miss some key sources (PubMed/Medline, PsycInfo, legal databases etc.) so it should be used in conjunction with other databases. This video will show you how to search Library Search.
Developing your search strategy
- Searching Techniques for a Literature ReviewA step-by-step approach to searching for a literature review, including how to identify your search words and modify and combine them to get the best results.
Remember that your faculty librarian can assist you with searching for a literature review, including advice on your search strategy, identifying and using appropriate databases, and anything else mentioned in this guide.
Tools for citation searching
Look at the reference list in key papers in your field of research for other relevant papers. Search for papers that have cited the key paper. There are 3 main sources of citation data that can be used for this purpose.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowProduced by Thomson Reuters, Web of Science includes the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Historically, it has been the most widely used tool for citation analysis.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowProduced by Elsevier, Scopus covers the sciences (life sciences, health sciences and physical sciences), social sciences and humanities.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar also tracks citation data. It has better coverage in the arts and humanities than Web of Science or Scopus, but covers the sciences as well. Publish or Perish is software that extracts the citation data present in Google Scholar and produces a range of metrics, including the h-index and journal impact metrics. Produced by Professor Anne-Wil Harzing of the University of Melbourne. The Publish or Perish software is not supported by Library Services.
You will also see citation trail icons in Library Search for exploring articles citing, or cited by the one you are looking at. Hover over them to see the direction of the trail - Cited by, or citing this article.
