Peer-reviewed journals often publish book reviews, as well as full-length articles. So, depending upon your topic, you may occasionally FIND book reviews, even when you limit your search to peer-reviewed journals.
A quick way to exclude many book reviews from your results is to use the Boolean operator NOT.
- In the search box, type keywords that describe your topic.
- Then, type: NOT "book review".
- For example, if you're researching Abraham Lincoln, you could try: Abraham Lincoln NOT "book review".
- Using quotation marks around "book review" is called phrase searching. Learn more about that technique here.
You can also use filters found in databases to exclude book reviews from your searches. Below, find instructions for EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest.
Our library subscribes to over a dozen databases from the vendor EBSCOhost. Academic Search Premier is one that we often recommend, since it searches a wide range of topics at once, so let's look at it as an example. The other EBSCO databases will be very similar.
1. Visit Academic Search Premier (if prompted to login, use your AMU/APU student credentials).
2. Scroll down to "Limit your results" and find the "Document Type" menu.
3. Select "Article" from the document type list. Notice that "Book Review" is in the list -- but leave it unselected.
4. Be sure that "full text" and "peer-reviewed" are checked.
5. Scroll back up to the search box and type in keywords to describe your topic.
6. Click "search."
1. Visit the Advanced Search link(if prompted to login, use your AMU/APU student credentials).
2. Look under "NARROW BY:" (beneath the search box) and check the box next to "Articles" (and anything else that you want). Leave "Reviews" unchecked.
3. Type your keywords into the search box.
4. Click search.
1. Visit the Advanced Search link (if prompted to login, use your AMU/APU student credentials).
2. In the top search box, type keywords to describe your topic.
3. Scroll down to "More search options" and use the "Document Type" options to choose sources that you can use, such as "Articles." Leave "Reviews" unselected.
4. Be sure that the full text and peer reviewed options are checked.
5. Click "search."
If you have problems finding a full-length article on your topic, contact the librarians.
