Journal databases:

• Are the best source of academic or scholarly information for your assessments
• Help you locate peer reviewed articles
• Are subject specific, so that you get more relevant results
• Have many options for refining results

You can find the Library's databases on the Journal Databases page. Then check out the 'Watch now' Workshop recordings on Using Library Databases and Finding Journal Articles.

Databases are grouped into subject areas. You'll find the Allied Health Journal Databases useful for your subject area, and take a look at the Justice Studies Databases for articles relating to legal issues.

On this page we will look at a few journal databases that may be useful for your upcoming assessment. The searches shown below are examples only, feel free to replace the examples shown with your own topic when working through the activities, to help you find the most relevant resources.

The video on the right demonstrates how to search databases using keywords and various Search Strategies to help you find the most relevant resources.

AGIS Plus Text (Attorney-General's Information Service), provided by Informit, covers all aspects of law and includes some full text. Use this database to locate scholarly articles on Australian law related topics. Check out the Informit Search Tips for more help. 

In the AGIS Plus Text database, try searching for these keywords:

• patient care AND "decision making". Placing the quotation marks around our search terms will force a search for the terms as a phrase rather than individually. AND is used to combine concepts.

Next, try narrowing the search by adding another keyword:

• patient care AND "decision making" AND (ethical OR legal).  Entered as in the image below, OR is used to simultaneously search for synonyms and parentheses ( ) are used to group terms/synonyms. See the Search Strategies page in this guide for more information.

Alternatively you could try searching for some other keywords that you identified in your topic analysis, either of these simple searches should lead you to useful background information on your topic.

• Did you get less results than Primo Search? Being a Justice Studies database, they should be more relevant to your topic.
• Look at the HTML and PDF links to access the full text of the article.
• If you cannot find the full text click on the  button to check if the article is available elsewhere.

Open the EBSCOhost CINAHL Plus with Full-Text database. Note: You may need to sign in with your CSU username and password. 

Enter these keywords:

• paramedic* AND ethical OR legal.  Using the truncation symbol ( * ) expands the search to include results with alternative word-endings. Searching for paramedic* will retrieve results with paramedic, paramedics, paramedical or paramedicine.

• Notice the number of results you get? Likely much less than Primo Search and Google Scholar, however you should find these results are quite relevant to your topic.
• Look at the HTML and PDF links to access the full text of the article.
• If you cannot find the full text click on the  button to check if the article is available elsewhere.

• CINAHL is an international database, to limit your search results to those relating to Australia or New South Wales, add those terms to your search: paramedic* AND ethical OR legal AND (australia OR "new south wales")

ProQuest Criminal Justice Database covers research on crime, its causes and impacts, legal and social implications, as well as litigation and crime trends.

• Try searching for the keywords: patient care AND "decision making". Placing the quotation marks around our search terms will force a search for the terms as a phrase rather than individually. AND is used to combine concepts.

• You'll notice there are more results in this database, that is because this database has more of an international focus.

• Use the Full text and Full text-PDF links to access the full text of the article.

• If you cannot find the full text click on the   button to check if the article is available elsewhere.