The Rationale Behind This Strategy
You've learned -- over time, from your professors, in instruction sessions with librarians -- or perhaps just by instinct or trial and error -- that "subject databases" is typically a code word for the authoritative, bounded, curated collections of scholarship that you access via the Harvard Libraries Databases page.
In many disciplines, "subject database" is also shorthand for secondary sources.
In reality, of course, subject databases in the social sciences are rich repositories of both theoretical studies ad methodologies in action (surveys, questionnaires, longitudinal studies, polls, interviews, datasets, tests and measures, and the like).
It's just not always clear to how to surface these in the often vast results sets a subject database returns you.
The 4 examples that follow in this section may give you both ideas for keyword and strategies to use in your searching.
PRO SEARCHING TIP: Anytime you enter a database, resist the urge to put in a few keywords and hit the send button. Almost all of them will offer you, up front, ways to do targeted, more nuanced, or streamlined searching. Take stock of your options.
Example 1: Social Sciences Premium Collection
Social Sciences Premium Collection (ProQuest) (a combination of major disciplinary databases covering sociology, politics, policy, criminology, education, and linguistics) allows you to apply filters (pre -or post-search) to target certain kinds or research (including empirical varieties).
Before executing a search, scroll down to see source and document (and language options:
Otherwise, after running a search, select from document type (a left-side filter option), as in this example:
NOTE: Keywords describing methodology or emphasis can also help a bit. Examples:
qualitative | quantitative | empirical | interviews | theories (or theoretical)
Example 2: History (American and World)
America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts are the premier databases, respectively, for scholarship on the U.S. and Canada (prehistory forward) and world history (c.1450 forward). Searching can be done by document or publication type; abstract notes will often identify, generally, types of sources on which the research has been based (maps, archives, etc.). One additional nice feature is the ability to limit to works about a historical period (decade, century, custom year range). Normally, databases allow you to limit solely by date that research itself was published.
Example 3: ERIC (Education)
ERIC (Educational Resouces Information Center): offers a robust array of filters including intended audience (policymaker, researchers, teachers, practitioners, etc. ) and publication types, like tests/questionnaries; legal/legislative/regulatory; historical materials; speeches/papers.
Example 4: PsycInfo
PsycInfo: Produced by the American Psychological Association, this is the premier database for locating research and scholarship in psychology, its many subfields, and allied fields, like education. Its filters are robust, methodology being one of them.
