Health and Welfare

• A good search strategy saves time and effort and leads to a quicker find of relevant sources.
• The extent of the information retrieval should be in proportion to the size of the assignment.
• Think creatively, be inventive in your choice of key words. Do not focus on one single key word.
• Create an overview of the subject in question, map important concepts.
• What different kinds of information sources will be required?
• Use different kinds of search strategies and benefit from the many search possibilities of the databases.
• Be critical, observant and question your sources. Be open to new ideas and perspectives.
• Ask yourself: Is this up-to-date, relevant, objective and reliable? What is the purpose?

Sometimes finding right among all the results is a challenge. How to make your search more effective and get relevant results more quickly? Below some brief advices, maybe these will help you move on? 

Subject terms – which keywords give relevant results?

• Reflect on the keywords, check the terminology
• Identify words and concepts, do not search with whole sentences

Search Strategies – which methods can I take advantage of?

• Combine keywords, use phrase search, truncate
• Check what search possibilities the respective database allows.
• Take advantage of the database's possibilities for limitation, for example by: material type, year, language, peer reviewed

Where to search – Finna, LibGuides and different databases > learn more in the Libguide Information searching.

In most databases, you can limit the search to only full-text material. Note however that this applies to the database you are searching in, the full text of the article can usually be found through some other database or ordered as an interlibrary loan. If you directly limit to full text only, you will exclude many relevant and newly published articles from your search result.

If the fulltext, or the link to the full text can’t be found directly:

• It can be freely available on the internet, try searching in a search engine.
• Most articles can be ordered as interlibrary loan, a copy of the article will then be sent to the library and can be collected at the service desk.

According to most license agreements, library users have the right to use the e-resources on site (walk-in-user in the library).

Tritonia

The e-resources of the University of Vaasa, VAMK University of Applied Sciences, and Novia University of Applied Sciences can be accessed in compliance with the license agreements at the terminals for information retrieval at Tritonia (Vaasa).

Turku

The e-resources of Åbo Akademi University and Novia University of Applied Sciences can be accessed in compliance with the license agreements in the libraries of Åbo Akademi Univiersity (Turku).

In the Finna portal you can find all the library resources, both the printed and e-resources.

Vaasa and Jakobstad:
Tritonia-Finna | Novia

Turku and Raseborg:
Alma (Novia)

In LibGuides you’ll find information resources within your field and you’ll get tips on how to search for information.