The databases you choose will depend on your research question and the disciplines in which relevant research may be conducted. Below is some guidance for choosing scholarly databases in a number of research areas. Every database works differently. See Devise Your Search Strategy for more guidance.
Note that these databases largely focus on the published, peer-reviewed literature. For guidance and resources for searching other types of information (i.e., grey literature), see Other Evidence Sources.
Adapted from Cornell University Libraries.
This is not an exhaustive list, but attempts to capture the most prevalent databases used to search for evidence in the social sciences. For additional databases, please use the links below.
Comprehensive index for education research. Contains scholarly journals, popular materials, reports, and other resources.
Maintained by the US Department of Education. This version of the database is connected to Lehigh Links.
Combines the index of MEDLINE with the functionality of the EBSCO platform and access to full-text for more than 1,500 journals in health and medical research not openly accessible.
PubMed comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
PubMed also includes links to resources and tools from The National Center for Biotechnology Information, which gives access to biomedical and genomic information.
Freely accessible archive of biomedical and life sciences full-text journal articles at National Library of Medicine (U.S. National Institutes of Health).
Helps find current articles that cite earlier work. Covers STEM, social sciences, & arts and humanities. Has an emerging sources citation index. Useful for identifying review articles Note: Web of Science generally does not include conference proceedings in search results.