HOW TO NARROW YOUR SEARCHES IN EBSCOHOST AND OTHER DATABASES

First and foremost, putting quotes around terms means that you will search them out IN THAT ORDER ("Reading High School" instead of all high schools that have a reading program).

Second, by looking for full text, you won't get abstracts (150-250 word summaries of what you're reading). This is a very good practice to get into (unless you are trying to figure out if a study will tell you what you want it to).

Third, by looking for articles with references, you will find that you can look up all of the sources that your article used. This is useful for studies on things (for example, seeing the study on Autism that your author is writing about).

Next, by looking for peer-reviewed articles, you will get scholarly documents written by PHDs and guys and gals with masters degrees. This is useful, but this might be a lot of terminology from the field that you aren't familiar with yet. Know what you're using. Make sure that just because PHD Smith knows it, you know it, too. If you don't understand it, it's useless to your cause. Really.

ALSO:

Use AND or + (depending on the engine) to connect words that must be there. (Steroids + baseball)

Use NOT or – to connect words that should not be there. (Titanic – movie)

Use OR if only one of the words must be there in the search.

Use an asterisk (*) to show that any letters can be there after the initials letters. (biolog* for biology and biologists)