DEN126 Dental Hygiene II: Articles & Professional Sites

• Use quotation marks around phrases, e.g. "cystic fibrosis" (except in PubMed)
• Use an asterisk to truncate search words, e.g., dent* = dental, dentist, dentistry, etc.
• Use AND to connect keywords and phrases, e.g., "dental care" AND "cystic fibrosis"
• Use terms spelled out as well as abbreviations, e.g., "cystic fibrosis" OR cf
• Use synonyms to see if you get different results, e.g. elderly, geriatric, old, senior, aged, etc.

Not all scholarly journals are peer-reviewed

Scholarly and peer-reviewed (or refereed) journals publish articles written by experts in that field for an audience of other experts and researchers.  The difference between the two is that peer-reviewed/refereed journals review/critique the content of the articles using a panel/board of peers in that field before the article is accepted for publication.  Most publications that are considered refereed will state so inside of their publication (usually on the table of contents page), on their website (look for a link to "about us"), and in Ulrich's Web (ask a librarian for online access).  Some of the library's databases allow you to limit your searches to scholarly articles and/or peer-reviewed articles, however...

Not everything published in a peer-reviewed journal is peer-reviewed

Things like Letters to the Editor, Book Reviews, Commentary, News, items signed by anonymous, some or all of which may be found in an issue of a peer-reviewed journal, do not go through the peer-review process.  Most of our databases have tools that allow you to refine your search to exclude this type of content from your list of results.

For a more extensive list of characteristics, as well as directions for how to tell if a journal is peer-reviewed, see the following guide:

CINAHL Search Tips

• Use Advanced Search
• Limit by Age Groups and/or Special Interest (Dental Care)

ProQuest Search Tips

• Limit to scholarly journals and/or peer-reviewed
• Use advanced search to narrow your search; change Anywhere to Document-TI to see if there is an article title on your topic, or limit by Age Group

PubMed Search Tips

• Do not use quotation marks
• Once you do a search, click on Show additional filters
• Check the box next to Age and/or Language, then click Show
  • Limit to age and/or language
• Add dentistry[mh] to the search box followed by AND plus your search terms to limit results to nursing articles, e.g., dentistry[mh] AND early caries