Search a range of article databases to find articles on a topic.
If you need to bulk export records from a database, check these steps first.
Biomedical databases:
Clinical evidence databases:
Grey literature databases:
Clinical Trials resources:
Search for past and current trials, OR register your clinical trial
If you find a great article on your topic, you can use a citation
database to track down related articles.
Evaluating and thinking critically about sources of information are important skills to develop and apply while undertaking research.
Not all information is reliable and appropriate for academic work, and not all information is relevant to your particular topic.
You should challenge and reflect on information that you find; don’t just accept everything you read.
Assess sources, based on:
OROKOHANGA - ‘The Origins’: The source of the information
MANA - ‘The Authority’ of the information
WHAKAPAPA - ‘The Background’ of the information
MĀRAMATANGA - ‘The Content’ and usability of the
information
ARONGA - ‘The Lens’ or objectivity of the information
Work through this tutorial to develop your skills in evaluating information that you find online:
SIFT - Evaluating Information Tutorial
Even though the library databases are good sources of information, we still need to evaluate that information before we decide to use it. You can do this by asking the following questions:
Use the acronym BADURL to help you evaluate online sources:
B ... Bias
A ... Authority
D ... Date
U ... URL
R ... Relevance
L ... Links
Work through this tutorial to develop your skills in evaluating information that you find online:
Or apply these terms to assess if the information you have found answers your research question.
Currency
Reliability
Authority
Purpose/Point of view
These tutorials are designed to provide a basic introduction to searching the databases.
Try these options:
Please note that these tutorials are specific to Yale University staff and students and some information relevant to University of Otago may differ.
OvidSP Essential Training, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University
Check out these tutorials to help you get the most out of searching these clinical resources: