Links to Library Research Mini-Videos on YouTube
Getting Help With Your ABA Library Research (1:23)
3 Databases in 3 Minutes (3:06)
Using CHOP, DROP, and OR Search Strategy (3:21)
Finding an Article I Need Using OneSearch (1:31)
Browsing ABA Journals to Find Useful Articles (2:26)
Searching Inside a Specific ABA Journal (1:38)
Requesting a "Citation Online" Article Using OneSearch (2:37)
Help Finding More Results (2:30)
Help Finding Fewer Results (3:03)
Other Useful Article Databases
Interlibrary Loan: Get Books & Articles We Don't Have
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Interlibrary LoanRequest a book, article, or other materials not available in the Ball State University Libraries.
Article Databases in Special Education & Applied Behavior Analysis
These are the most important databases in the fields of special education and applied behavior analysis:
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APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new windowKey database in the field of psychology.
To limit results to journal articles, look under Source Types for "Academic Journals."
Further useful limiting options are on the Advanced Search page. -
ERIC (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowA key database in the field of education, providing access to records of journal and non-journal literature.
To limit results to journal articles, look under Source Types for "Academic Journals." -
OneSearch This link opens in a new windowOneSearch allows searching across all the library databases at once. Useful for searching by article title to see if the library has access to it.
Use the limiters on the left of the results page to narrow to articles.
Other databases to try:
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Web of Science This link opens in a new windowMultidisciplinary database including articles from highly impactful journals. Allows citation chaining to learn who has cited an article you're interested in.
CHOP, DROP, and OR method...illustrated
Start with your topic.
You might describe it in a phrase or a question.
CHOP it up into its individual concepts.
Essentially you're identifying the most important words in your topic description. Often these are nouns.
DROP those terms into individual search boxes.
The order isn't important.
Add synonyms or related words for relevant concepts, using OR.
These other terms may come from your head, a thesaurus, or something else you've read that's on-topic.
Look at good records for related words you can add into your search.
The subject field of a library database is a great place to look for useful search terms.
After you evaluate your results, and revise your search, you repeat the process...over and over!
After all, research is an iterative process -- you're unlikely to find the best results with just one search.
Find It @ Ball State: Helping you find the full text of the title you want
When you'
re using a database, and can't find a link to the full text of an article, look for a Find It @ Ball State button, sometimes under "Access Options."
Find It helps you to search the Libraries' other databases and subscriptions to see if the full text is available through another resource.
- If it is available, Find It provides a link to the text of the article.
- If it cannot find the full-text, Find It provides a link to Interlibrary Loan so that you can request that we get a copy of the article from another library.
To use Find It, click on the red Find It @ Ball State button. (Sometimes you must click on "Access Options" to see "Find it @ Ball State.")
If we DO have full text access to the article, a page will be displayed with options for access under "Full Text Format Options." The typical options are:
- PDF: the file format reflecting the formatting for a printed page
- Link: taking you to the webpage version of the article
If we do NOT have immediate full text access to the article, the OneSearch record for the article will be displayed.
- Look under "Links" for "Request this item with InterLibrary Loan / ILLiad."
- Click there, and log in with your Ball State username and password.
- More information about placing an Interlibrary Loan request.
