Literature Reviews

Multisearch or a Subject Database?

• Multisearch is great for question exploration using Boolean searches and narrow but interdisciplinary topics.
  • Broad topics and terms such as "women" or "politics" can return overwhelming numbers of results.
• Subject Databases are perfect for discipline specific searching and discovering terminology. See our subject guides.
  • Many subject databases have a thesaurus for terms used as subjects and descriptors.
• Specialty databases can be places to find grey literature.
  • Scoping and systematic reviews should include more than peer-reviewed literature.
  • Examples include dissertation databases and other format specific resources.
• Try multiple options for searches that need to be comprehensive, or if you aren't finding what you need.

Searchable Fields

Subject databases provide more searchable fields in a database record.

Multisearch has to simplify search fields to a few that apply to all the databases, in order to search dozens of databases at the same time.

Compare the list of searchable fields on the left (Multisearch) with the list of searchable fields on your right (PsycINFO). The field list from PsycINFO is shrunk to fit into a screen. A Database Provider list is displayed, too.

If you are doing a scoping or systematic review, best practices require that you track the exact number of articles that came from any one database, making Multisearch impractical to use.

There are two easy ways to find subject databases.

From the library website, hover over the Databases arrow to open a larger menu pictured to the right. 

1. Select Browse by Subject and find your discipline or broad subject area to explore.
2. Select ALL (boxed in red at right).

• You'll be at the A to Z page below. Look for the search box as pictured below.
• Type in your term. You'll get a list of databases that may have content for that term.
• In the example below, 67 database were found.

Not every database found may be a perfect match. For example, you may need only peer-reviewed articles and not primary resources, so check to see what types of information the database provides.

If you know the journal name, but don't know if you can search it, follow these directions.

From the pull-down menu (next to the Multi-search default) select Journals by Title.

Type in the name of the Journal.

You'll be redirected to the UGA Libraries catalog and a list of results for what you've typed. Checking the catalog will let you know if we have print issues and also whether or not an online method for searching and accessing the journal is available.

In this example, there are print copies and online access (below left). Click the title of the journal for more information (below right).

At right, you can see that TESOL is in JSTOR and the Wiley Online Journals publisher database site and NOT in ERIC or some other education databases as might be expected. Now you can go to access sites, depending on the data range covered, and search for the journal and articles from that journal.

If you need to discover journals in your field, follow these directions.

You can explore Journal Citation Reports, which is part of the Web of Science suite. 

Search in the Journals section.

OR you can browse in the Categories section.