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Social Work

Searching Tips

The following are some suggested terms to use when searching in a database:

social work*

social welfare

public welfare

social service*

social case work

drug AND (addict* OR abus*)

alcohol* AND (addict* OR abus*)

domestic violence

abuse OR violence

incarcerat* OR prison*

youth OR children

teenage* OR adolescen*

homeless*

rehabilitation


* = truncation symbol that replaces any character(s) in a word (e.g., addict* = addict, addicted, addiction, addictions, addictive, addicts, etc.)

AND = combines search terms, locating articles where both terms appear

OR = locates one or the other (or both) search terms, usually used with synonyms