Peer-reviewed journals often publish book reviews, as well as full-length articles. So, depending upon your topic, you may occasionally be flooded with book reviews, even when you limit your search to scholarly journals.
Luckily, Summon makes it easy to exclude book reviews from your search. On the advanced search screen, look for the "Exclude from results" option and check "Book reviews." Then, type your keywords in the search box and click the "search" button.
If you're searching one of our individual databases, it will work a little differently. Below, find instructions for EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest.
EBSCO:
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.
