Public Health Senior Capstone

Pacific Library - Boxer Search 
Pacific's library search includes millions of items, including both electronic and print material. All of our books and e-books are here, as well as about 70% of the journal articles that we have paid access to. This is the quickest way to get into sources that you can access immediately, without having to guess whether you'll be able to get the full text. Tips: 

• You can limit to "Full Text Only", Print Books only, Ebooks only, etc. Use the tools on the left hand.
• The Green Dot means you should be able to get access immediately. See more tips about getting access here.
   

Google Scholar

This database gathers sources from many other databases into one centralized location. It will find nearly any academic book or article that has been published. The downside is that it is so large, that the items you really want to find may be buried under dozens of irrelevant sources. Also, there may be many articles that you cannot actually open. Tips: 

• Are the articles you are finding too old? Change the date range using the tool on the left side:
  
• If you find one really good article/book, you can find others like it by clicking on the "Cited By" or "Related Articles" links:
  
• Become a Google search expert by using their advanced operators

Proquest Dissertations and Theses
This database is an amazing resource for dissertations (which are the final papers of Ph.D. and Master's students, typically 50-250 pages long). This is a great place to find CUTTING EDGE research on recent issues. These sources are generally very difficult to find except through this database! Example:

PubMed (same data, different skin as Medline / Ovid)
 

This is THE premier source for medical research. PubMed is the non-professional version of the database; Medline/Ovid has more advanced options but is a little less user friendly. You can often find medical intervention studies here.
 

ERIC 

The is THE best source for research related to education. You can often find studies related to school-based interventions here.
 

JSTOR 

This database is especially good for topics in history, political science, English and the humanities. Its biggest negative is that most of the sources in it were published 3+ years ago. Use the Advanced Search for best results! If you scroll down on Advanced Search page, you can pick specific topics to search within. Example: 
 

CQ Researcher
This database contains very nice overviews of policies/research on big issues like Gentrification, Assisted Suicide, Homelessness, Attracting Jobs, etc. Note: The overviews themselves are a bit broad and encylopedia-like, but each overview includes an extensive bibliography at the end, which lays out many other key sources very nicely! If you find a good article here, it may point you towards 20 other high-quality sources that you can use to write your paper. 

Many More Options...
 

See also this alternate guide to Public Health sources

Many other specialized databases are available through the library. We have organized them according to academic field, including:

Social Work
Healthcare Administration & Leadership
Politics & Government 
Environmental Studies
Philosophy
Sociology & Anthropology

And many more