Library Guides: Adult, Lifelong, and Workforce Education: Search Tips and Tutorials

Adult Education Search Tips

Use each database's thesaurus or subject headings list to identify the best wording for your topic. For example, ERIC uses:

Empirical Research in Social Sciences and Education
A cheat sheet to finding empirical (qualitative or quantitative) articles in many of the library's databases. Besides this page, see links on the left side of the guide to learn more about empirical research.

APA PsycINFO: About
ProQuest's detailed guide to using PsycINFO. Includes explanations, tips, and videos.
ERIC: About
ProQuest's detailed guide to using ERIC. Includes explanations, tips, and videos.
Social Science Training Materials
A gateway to resources for using ProQuest's Social Sciences databases.
ProQuest Webinars
Online training for ProQuest products. Some are for database users; others are more appropriate for library educators.
ProQuest Video
ProQuest's YouTube channel. Includes videos about its products, and about database research in general.

EBSCO Product Help
A gateway to resources for using EBSCO databases.
EBSCO Recorded Sessions
Watch recorded webinars to learn how to use other EBSCO databases.
EBSCO Tutorials (on YouTube)
EBSCO's playlist of database tutorials.

LionSearch Tutorials
How to use LionSearch, Penn State's federated search engine, which enables you to tap the library catalog and most journal databases simultaneously.
Online Students Use of the Library
Although this guide is intended for Penn State World Campus students, it's a helpful orientation for anyone who is doing most of their research off-campus.
How to Guides
Penn State's library tutorials. They cover a wide variety of research-related skills.
Gale Training Tools
Tips sheets, tutorials, and other resources for those learning to use Gale databases.
Gale Training Tools (YouTube)
Gale's YouTube channel for tutorials on its databases.
Google Scholar Search Tips
Advice for using Google's search engine for journal articles.
JSTOR Support > Students
JSTOR's student page is helpful for any user.
JSTOR on YouTube
Videos from JSTOR's support team.
PubMed Help
Videos and other resources for using PubMed, the world's largest medical literature database.