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Health Sciences Research Guide: Articles & Databases

Choosing a database

The best way to find published, scholarly articles on your topic is to use an article database, which allows you to search by topic and see in which journal and in which issue an article appears.  Some databases, such as Academic Search Complete, cover journals in many fields, while others (for example, Medline, PsycINFO, SOCindex, or CINAHL) only cover journals in a specific field.

Evaluating Health Information

One concern when you use a search engine such as Google to find medical information on the Internet is quality: who is publishing the information and why should you believe them?  You need to be the judge, but the more information you can glean from a site, the better you will be able to make a decision about the quality of the information.  Some things to look for are:

  • Whose opinions are being represented? 
  • What are their qualifications? 
  • How old is the information? 
  • Does this agree with what I’ve seen elsewhere (especially from off-line sources)?

Tutorials:

Checklists and Guidelines:

 Use one of the many databases the Library has to find scholarly articles, original studies, and other resources!

Find It!

Locating Full Text via FindIt@CUNY Button
If you identify an article where full text is not available, try the Findit@CUNY Button.  FindIt@CUNY opens a new window, and indicates if your article is available full text in another database that the Brooklyn College Library subscribes to. If it is, simply click the “Full Text Online” link to access the full text.  If it is not available full text online, one of the options is to search OneSearch to see whether the Library has it in print and/or to request the article via Interlibrary Loan.

More HNSC databases