Selecting the best information resources to answer your research question depends on the depth of the information you need and the time frame you wish to explore. Ask yourself what kind of information you need:
Use the table below to help select the type of source that will best serve your purpose. Remember that you will probably want to use more than one type to locate the wide variety of information that fully covers your research topic.
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You'll find journal articles from a wide variety of publications by searching online databases. Some databases are more general, and other databases are discipline- or subject-specific. How do you decide which database indexes journals that are related to your topic?
General Interest Databases are helpful for researching a general topic. The publications indexed here cover the broadest range of topics and may include magazines and journals related to business, current affairs, literature, religion, social sciences, technology, medicine and many others. Examples include Academic Search Complete, Lexis Nexis Academic, and ArticleFirst.
Discipline-specific Databases focus on specific areas of study. Most publications indexed in these databases are scholarly/academic journals or professional/trade pubications. If you have difficulty finding information on your topic in a General Interest database, try a Discipline-specific database instead. Examples include Ethnic Newswatch, Medline, and Philosopher's Index.
Subject-specific Databases are most helpful for in-depth research on a topic. These databases usually contain only scholarly/academic journals or professional/trade publications and focus on a more narrow subject area. Examples include ABI Inform (business and management), ERIC (Education), and PsycINFO (psychology).