Recommended Databases - CD 601 Course Guide: Communications Disorders - Intro to Graduate Studies

First things first: What is a library database?

A database is a platform that houses digitized information. This information can take many forms:

Full-text academic articles
eBooks
Documentaries

News
Images/Photographs/Art
Citations (no full text)
much more!

A database is owned by a vendor, or parent company. Think of vendors almost like publishers.

Vendors can own one database, or many.

Databases can cover one subject, or many. Think of databases almost like books.

For example:

CINAHL is owned by EBSCOHost.
- CINAHL is a health professions database.
Academic Search Complete is owned by EBSCOHost.
- Academic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database, and covers many different subject areas, which includes health professions, as well as business, psychology, history, etc.

Explore further: What is a Library Database?

Why not just use Google Scholar?

While there is nothing wrong with using Google Scholar, it is limited in what is easily and freely provided to you.

With the Marshall Library databases, you get access to academic sources that Google Scholar either can't find at all, or finds but provides behind a paywall.

Never pay for information!

As a Marshall student, you get access to what the library "owns" (both in print and digitized), but you also have access to information that exists that we don't "own," but that we can get for you from another library, at no cost to you. This is because of our Information Delivery Services.
- Go to the library's Information Delivery Services page: https://www.marshall.edu/library/services/ids/

The databases below will take you to discipline-specific academic research.

Online Databases for Communication Disorders

We recommend that you search these sources for research related to communication disorders. Of course, don't overlook other databases. Through our resurces we offer access to hundreds of thousands of articles.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
The world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals.
In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals. (NOTE: Replaces Academic Search Premier)
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
CINAHL Complete provides broad content coverage including over 50 nursing specialties, speech and language pathology, nutrition, general health and medicine and more. With CINAHL Complete users get fast and easy access to top nursing and allied health journals, evidence-based care sheets and quick lessons.
ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
ERIC, the Education Resource Information Center, provides access to education literature and resources. The database contains more than 1.3 million records and provides access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Full text for certain publications is subject to market availability.
MEDLINE This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals
PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
APA PsycArticles® from the American Psychological Association (APA), is a definitive source of full-text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology. It contains content from journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA), its imprint the Educational Publishing Foundation (EPF), and from allied organizations including the Canadian Psychological Association and the Hogrefe Publishing Group. It includes all journal articles, book reviews, letters to the editor, and errata from each journal. Coverage spans 1894 to present; nearly all APA journals go back to Volume 1, Issue 1. APA PsycArticles® is indexed with controlled vocabulary from APA's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms®.
PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
The APA PsycInfo® database, American Psychological Association’s (APA) renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains records and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from periodicals in dozens of languages.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 24 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Abstracts may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Help & Tutorials

If you are new to some of the advanced searching strategies and specific subject vocabulary used in focused searching, check out these tutorials.

CINAHL Tutorials
PubMed Quick Start
Get answers to all of your basic questions about PubMed

Medline vs. PubMed

What is the difference? Which should you use?

Just so you know, Medline is a subset of PubMed. We recommend that you always use the PubMed link from the list of MU Libraries databases. The library holdings will display if Marshall owns the journal/article when you select the "abstract" option on the left side of the results list.

On the other hand, if you want your search limited to evidence-based research, it is recommended that you use the Medline from the EBSCO platform.

For more information, the US National Library of Medicine has prepared a Fact Sheet on this topic.

Reference Databases

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Now offering more than 800 highly regarded reference titles from over 80 publishers, Credo Reference covers every major subject and also provides Topic Pages as a starting point for researchers.
Gale eBooks (GVRL) This link opens in a new window
Gale eBooks (formerly known as Gale Virtual Reference Library) is a collection of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources with coverage in major subject areas.

CD 601 Course Guide: Communications Disorders - Intro to Graduate Studies: Recommended Databases