Social Work: How to Search & Find Resources

Finding Journal Articles

Journals may be called periodicals, serials or magazines. They are usually published weekly, monthly or seasonally. Some are scholarly and can be called peer reviewed or refereed. An article is usually a short written piece or essay on a specific subject. Most of the Social Work journals and their articles are now electronic. A smaller number are only available in paper format.  Articles contained in the journals can be found in two ways;

1) Search ECU Library

2) Search key databases and journal indexes listed in the A-Z Databases list.

Finding Journal Articles with ECU Library

• In ECU Library search, type your topic or keywords into the search box and click search.
• more than one keyword can be linked together using the search operator AND eg:   "social work" AND community AND programs requires the results to contain all three words in the article.  Another common operator is the use of the phrase search eg: "social work" 
• once the results are displayed, look to the filters on the left
• limit the results shown to those items held by ECU by selecting Edith Cowan University
• under Content Type select full text and peer reviewed
• select a date range if required
• select the article title or "Access online" button to enter the database that holds the journal title.  Once the article displays you will need to locate the PDF download button to save or print that article.

Instructions: To find a specific journal article

• as with finding a book, we insert one of the authors and some of the words from the journal article title.
• to access the full text of the journal article select the title or "Access online" button to enter the database that holds the journal title.  Once the article displays you will need to locate the PDF download button to save or print that article.

Due to publisher restrictions many of the articles contained in databases may not be found in ECU Library.  It is strongly recommended that you search within a number of the Social Work databases. For more instruction and recommended databases visit the  Databases page.

For more information on finding Journals and Journal articles, visit How to find journal articles

Finding DVDs and Streaming Video

You can locate DVD's and streaming films available at ECU by searching ECU Library. 

You can search by title, keyword or subject. You can restrict your results to the format you want by including DVD or film in your search. Alternatively you can use the format search filters once a search is complete. 

Streaming Video Collections

Streaming Audio - NAXOS

ECU students and staff have access to a large collection of streaming music. Why not use this music to help you get in the zone when studying? 

The library subscribes to music listening, video and music score databases which are accessible from your computer. You can create play lists for listening, assignments and presentations and share play lists with others who have ECU authentication.

Check out the Study Area and Resources section for music resources for children.

Create a Search Strategy

Before you start searching ECU Library search or a database it is recommended that you spend time thinking and creating a search strategy. This requires you to identify relevant search terms, and combine them together as a string.

This will help you search effectively and efficiently and save you time.

6 Quick Search Tips

1. Identify Key concepts: 

Analyse your assignment question or topic and identify key terms and phrases. Think of alternative terms that can also be used. i.e. "Social work", counselling.

2. Combine the terms in a search: 

AND - joins concepts and narrows the search

• "social work" AND "social policy"
• inequality AND "social work"

3. Use Truncation and Wildcards:

Search all forms of the word, variant spelling (i.e. Australian English v American English)

• child* (child, children, childhood etc.)
• behavio*r (behavior, behaviour)
• infan* (infants, infantile, infancy)
• aggress* (aggressive, aggression, aggressiveness) 

4. Phrase searching

"...." enclose a phrase in inverted commas to only search for that particular phrase in that order, not for every individual word.

• "social policy"
• "child development"

5. Broaden your search:

OR (use synonyms to broaden the search, including alternative or related terms)

• "social work" OR counsel*ing
• youth OR adolesc* OR juvenille

6. Exclude unrelated topics

NOT excludes unrelated terms and narrows your search

• "early childhood" NOT kindergarten
• writing NOT handwriting