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Human Development & Family Sciences

Search Tips

Search by keywords/small phrases and use Boolean searching. Works well in library databases, Google Scholar can do it to some extent under Advanced Search.

AND: "special education" AND disproportion*
OR:  "social media" OR twitter OR "tiktok"

"early childhood" OR "young children" OR adolescen*
AND        
"cognitive development" OR "brain development"    
AND        
"mental health" OR "psychological health"    

The search boxes get translated into a ( text search string ) that can be read by any database.

( "early childhood" OR "young children" OR adolescen* ) AND ( "cognitive development" OR "brain development" ) AND ( "mental health" OR "psychological health" )
 

Using "Quotation Marks" searches words as a phrase, "young adult". Works in library databases and Google Scholar

Limit search results by Date and Peer-Reviewed journals.   

Truncation: The symbol used is usually can be a useful technique to search multiple forms of a word, but only works in library databases, as in the example below:

adolescen* will retrieve: adolescent, adolescents, adolescence, etc. 

Check Subject terms to see if there are any synonym terms to consider in your search. This only applies to library databases, as Google Scholar is only keyword searching, but keep an eye out for various terms you read in articles.