1. Research for Social Workers
Objectives for today’s workshop:
• To demonstrate the use of 3 databases useful to Social Workers
undertaking research: Social Care Online; Proquest; Social Science
Citation Index.
• To outline the basic principles of carrying out any database search.
• Students to be able to select the database appropriate to your search.
•Time to familiarise yourselves with key features of the databases with time
to practice searches and ask questions.

2. Social Care Online
• Advantages
Social work specific, good starting point,
comparatively easy to use, not just journal
material includes books, government
documents, legislation
• Disadvantages
SCIE selects content so database is not
comprehensive, full text availability not linked to
Middlesex holdings.

3. Proquest - Newspapers
• Advantages
Quick and easy to use, good for opinion,
background and case studies, all full text, links
to Refworks
• Disadvantages
Newspaper articles only, no research

4. Social Science Citation Index
• Advantages
Widest “academic” coverage, most comprehensive
database, research based, “article cited by” link,
can export citations into Refworks
• Disadvantages
Least user friendly interface, full text availability not
linked to Middlesex holdings, no topic/subject
indexing

5. Principles of Searching
• Define your question
• Think of synonymous terms for your subjects
• You may need to search each concept
separately and then combine them to get the
best results
• You will need to use “AND” , “OR” and maybe
“NOT” to search for and find information.

6. Combining searches on Social
Care Online
• And – combining two or more searches with and
will narrow down your search (numbers of
results will decrease) and only give you results
that include BOTH search terms
• Or – combining two or more searches using or
will give you a set of results containing either or
both of the search terms. Number of results will
increase. This is best done when combining two
synonymous or closely-related terms
• Not – this allows you to exclude a word or
phrase that would otherwise give you false hits.

7. Remember….
• Select the database / source appropriate to the
information you are looking for.
• Plan your search, think about how you are going
to search and find the information.
More Skills
• Other resources are available to you –
Healthcare databases.
• Introduction to the Healthcare databases training
available at the Archway Healthcare Library
(useful for mental health subjects)