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Milner Library

MUS 194 - Principles of Music Therapy (Ropp)

This guide provides resources to help with research for the Population Information Reference Sheet assignment for MUS 194.

Too many results?

AND

AND is a Boolean operator that narrows your results to be more specific.

  • When you connect two keywords with AND, the results will only include articles that have both of the keywords you entered.
  • In the example search below for music therapy AND anxiety, my articles will contain both music therapy and anxiety.

Illustration of how AND works

NOT

NOT is another Boolean operator that will narrow your results.

  • It is helpful to use when you keep seeing articles about a topic you are not interested in.
  • When you use NOT to connect keywords, your search will not have any articles about the keywords you put after NOT.
  • In the example search below, if I search for music therapy NOT anxiety, I will get articles about music therapy that are not about anxiety.

Illustration of how NOT works

Many databases offer a menu containing a variety of ways to limit your searches both before you search and on your results page.

In EBSCO databases such as RILM or CINAHL, under the search box on the results page, there will be limiting options to help you narrow your search. The All Filters button provides a comprehensive list of options for you to further limit your search, which is similar to the Refine Results limiters on the old EBSCO database interface.

Here are the limiters under the search box in RILM:

Screenshot of RILM filter options under search box

Here are All Filters menu options in RILM:Screenshot of the "All Filters" menu options in RILM

PsycInfo also provides options on the All Filters menu that you can use to choose characteristics for your population such as gender, age, and population. You can also use Methodology to look for specific types of studies such as literature reviews and empirical studies.

Screenshot of "All Filters" menu options in PsycInfo

Not enough results?

OR

OR expands the number of results you will get. When you use OR to connect two keywords, your article results will include some articles with only your first keyword, some articles with only your second keyword, and some articles with both keywords. In the example below for anxiety OR stress, some articles will include stress, some will include anxiety, and some will include both stress and anxiety.

Illustration of how OR works

Different articles use different synonyms, or words with same meaning.

  • Check the keywords you are using to search and see if they have synonyms you could try plugging in place of the terms you already tried.
  • For example, if one of your search terms was elderly, you could try replacing it with geriatric or aged.

Another way to expand your results is called truncation. You can search for multiple words at the same time that start with the same letters by placing a * after the letters.

Here are some examples:

  • librar* will find articles using the words library, libraries, librarian, and librarians
  • therap* will find articles using the words therapy, therapies, therapeutic, therapist, and therapists.
  • child* will find articles using the words child and children.

Search Strategies

This page contains advanced search strategies to help you hone your searches.

  • Use the strategies in Too many results? when you are getting a large number of results to help you narrow your results.
  • Use the strategies in Not enough results? when you are getting a small number of results to help you expand your results.

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