Find Articles & Dissertations
- CINAHL: Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature This link opens in a new window Covers journal publications from the nursing and allied health professions. While it primarily covers journal citations, it also includes book chapter abstracts, dissertations, and conference abstracts.
- PubMed This link opens in a new window Comprehensive coverage of abstracts to the biomedical literature. Includes medicine, the allied health disciplines, and biomedical literature. Materials range from 1809 Onwards, with more recent decades better represented.
- Embase This link opens in a new window Embase.com is the database equivalent of EXCERPTA MEDICA. It is a comprehensive, international database covering Anesthesiology, Human Genetics, Gerontology, Drug Research, Pharmacology, Drug Side Effects and Interactions, Toxicology, Human Medicine (Clinical and Experimental), including Pediatrics and Obstetrics & Gynecology, Basic Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Biomedicine, Health Policy and Management, Pharmacoeconomics, Public and Occupational Health, Environmental Health, Pollution Control, Substance Dependence and Abuse, Psychiatry, Forensic Science, Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Nursing.
- APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window Provides access to articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations that cover the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window This database is a core general science resource, covering all aspects of scientific literature. It also has a number of tools that make it a unique resource for finding scholarly literature. Item records come with links both to the works cited by the paper in question and the future works that cite that paper. Web of Science also allows the user to set up email alerts for specific authors or topics, provides researcher profiles, and to use associated journal metrics provided by the vendor.
Cited reference searching (also known as "forward searching") allows you to see if a particular article has been cited in more recent research. This is an excellent way to:
- See if an article has been influential in the field of study you are interested in. If an article has been cited many times, this can mean that it has had a strong impact on a given area of research.
- Check to make sure you are getting the most current information. An author who has cited an article that you have found may provide you with more up-to-date information.
- Find additional information on your topic.
These are two tools for searching cited references:
This link opens in a new window This database is a core general science resource, covering all aspects of scientific literature. It also has a number of tools that make it a unique resource for finding scholarly literature. Item records come with links both to the works cited by the paper in question and the future works that cite that paper. Web of Science also allows the user to set up email alerts for specific authors or topics, provides researcher profiles, and to use associated journal metrics provid This link opens in a new window Google Scholar provides access to academic literature from many disciplines. The sources include articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions and come from diverse places including academic publishers, online repositories and other
Are you only finding an article abstract but not the full-text of the article? Not to worry, the 
will lead you to the full-text of the article.
Integrated into many BU journal databases, the Find@BU button will help you get to the article in one of three ways:
- If BU has the full-text of the article through an online journal subscription, you will see a link that will take you directly to the article or the online journal.
- If BU subscribes to the print journal in which the article appeared, you will see information about which BU Library carries the print volumes, and the call number of the title.
- IF BU does not subscribe to either a print or online version of a journal, you will be given an option to get the article from another article. A link will take you to our interlibrary loan request form. Once you fill out this form, you will receive a pdf copy of the article within 48 hours of your request.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses This link opens in a new window This database contains indexing and abstracts of American doctoral dissertations accepted at accredited institutions since 1861 and a selection from other countries. Masters level theses are included selectively.
Database Searching Tips
What is controlled vocabulary?
- Most databases have what is called "controlled vocabulary."
- "Controlled vocabulary" refers to the standard words and phrases that indexers of the database use to describe populations, conditions, interventions, and more.
- Using controlled vocabulary can help you zero in on the information that you need more quickly.
Where to find controlled vocabulary:
- Look up PubMed's controlled vocabulary in the MeSH database.
- Search for CINAHL's controlled vocabulary by using their subject headings database.
- Search Embase's Emtree database to find controlled vocabulary.
Controlled vocabulary example in a database:
Here are MeSH terms for an article on adults with plantar fasciitis. Using these MeSH terms will help you find similar articles.
Boolean terms are words include AND, OR, and NOT.
- Typing in Bursitis OR frozen into the database will find articles on either or both Bursitis or frozen shoulder..This is helpful if you are working with synonyms.
- Bursitis AND rehabilitation will pull articles that mention both Bursitis and rehabilitation methods.
- "Adult" NOT "child" will help eliminate articles about "children."
Truncation is also known as wild card searching. It allows you to search for different variations of a word. In most databases, you can truncate a keyword by adding the asterisk symbol* at the end of the root of a keyword. Here are some examples:
- adolescen* searches the database for adolescents, adolescent, or adolescence
- female* searches for the keywords female (singular) or females (plural)
