Answered By: Michael Davidson
Last Updated: Nov 08, 2021     Views: 31

As an example, I'll describe the steps I took to find articles that you can consider for the topic "domestic minor sex trafficking." You should change the search terms to suit your assignment and your own preferences.

My first search used official subject terms:

  1. I went to our databases page and, under "All Subjects", I chose "Sociology"
  2. I clicked the first database, Academic Search Premier
  3. Once I got there, I clicked "Choose Databases" and added SocIndex and Social Sciences with Full Text so I could search all three databases at once
  4. How I chose search terms: 
    1. At the top of the page, I moused over "Subjects" and clicked "Academic Search Premier - Subject Terms"
    2. I entered the words "sex trafficking" and clicked on the recommended subject "human trafficking"
    3. To the right of "narrower terms" I checked the checkbox for "child trafficking" and clicked the "Add" button
    4. I hit "Search" and then checked "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed Journals)"
  5. The search for child trafficking found 179 peer-reviewed articles that you are free to consider for your lit review

My second search used the words from an example question:

  1. After I did the search above, I deleted what was in the search box and typed "domestic minor sex trafficking" (without quotation marks) and hit Search
  2. This gave me a total of 58 peer-reviewed articles with dates ranging from 2009 and 2017