To successfully find articles in Criminal Justice Abstracts, SocINDEX, PsycINFO or any other research literature database your search terms must match those terms used to describe the article in the database.
- Use these search shortcuts to get more of what you want in your search results
- drug abuse AND treatment -- to narrow your search
- drug abuse OR alcoholism -- to broaden your search
- fear N4 crime -- to get articles with the words “fear” and “crime” within 4 words of one another, e.g. crime in cities is causing fear among the inhabitants
- Use therap* to retrieve articles with the terms therapy, therapies or therapeutical
Hypothetical search: Find articles to answer the question: "How effective are different therapeutic approaches for treating teenagers with drug abuse problems?"
List the key topical terms in your question and terms that are synonymous or related. Apply the above search tools as needed. Combine terms with AND or OR as needed.
- Therapeutic approaches: therapy, treatment, intervention, (therap*, treat*, interven*)
- Teenager: youth, adolescent, teen, young adult (adolescen*)
- Drug Abuse: substance abuse, addiction, alcohol, narcotics (addict*, alcohol*)
