AD 102 Journal Review: Get Started: Find Articles

AD 102 Journal Review Assignment

This guide is intended to support the AD 102 Journal Review Assignment. As a refresher, you will be choosing two peer-reviewed journal articles that have these qualities:

  • published since 2018
  • must be research that uses a control group (evidenced by words such as cross-matched samples, randomized, control group, double or single blind etc.)
  • is about a specific drug and its effects or treatment outcomes (for example, the effect of cocaine on
    the memory; or marijuana and its effects on the lungs)

As a reminder, peer reviewed journal articles:

  • are written by researchers, writing up the results of a study they did themselves
  • are written for other experts (not college students or librarians!) using technical and scientific vocabulary
  • include detailed information about who or what was studied, the methods used, the results of the study, and the authors' conclusions.

The value of reading peer reviewed articles is you learn exactly how the research was conducted. You can compare studies yourself, using information from the original source.

Recommended databases

Need Help?

Finding relevant scientific research on a topic and citing it correctly are skills that take practice. Librarians have had a lot of practice, so reach out if you need help or hit a roadblock.

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Keyword searching

Don't type a whole sentence into the database search box. 

For example, if you are researching the effect of cocaine on short term memory and you are looking for studies that used a control group, your initial search should be: cocaine short term memory "control group" 

Another example: if you are looking for articles about treatment outcomes for opioid addiction and you want studies that used randomized samples, your initial search should be: opioid addiction treatment outcomes randomized

Hint: If you aren't sure which impacts/effects of a drug or its treatment that you want to study, start by searching for the name of the drug and one of the phrases for control group, to see what aspects of the drug or its treatment have been studied and published. This may help give you ideas. For example: heroin and "single-blind" OR heroin and "control group" 

Limiting by Date and Peer-Review

On the results page of most databases, you will find limiters to focus your search by date and publication type. Use these to find articles are peer-reviewed and available full-text. You can also change the date range so that the results are only articles published from 2018 onward.