ASSIA:
Applied Social Sciences Index &
Abstracts
COPYRIGHTS
"The University of Bradford retains copyright for this material, which
may not be reproduced without prior written permission".
The Library is within Learner Support Services and welcomes feedback
on its documentation. Please email any comments on the content of
this document to:suggestions@bradford.ac.uk
If you need to view this or any other LSS documents in an alternative
format, please see: http://www.brad.ac.uk/library/documents .
ASSIA screenshots reproduced with permission from ProQuest LLC. © 2007 ProQuest LLC; all rights reserved. Further
reproduction is prohibited. EndNote(r) Copyright (c) 2007 The Thomson Corporation.
February 2012
Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts

How will it help me? Use ASSIA to find social science journal articles; it
is an index of more than 500,000, mostly from the UK and US. ASSIA links
to the full-text of articles paid for by the Library.

What does it cover? Child abuse, criminology, education, ethnicity,
family, geriatrics, health, housing, marriage; nursing; unemployment,
immigration, industrial relations, political science, psychology, race
relations, religion, sociology, social work, substance abuse, urban
planning, women's studies.

How recently were the articles published? 1987 to this month.

Help!:
The Help icon is in context at top right of the page.
GET STARTED
1. Go to the Library eResources webpage (link on the right of the University
homepage), and type assia into the Finding eResources by Title box;
2. From the Bradfinder page, Connect to ASSIA (click on the link). On campus
you will be automatically taken to the ProQuest ASSIA home page.
Search
1. Pick out the main ideas or search terms in your question or topic, and think of
any alternative words or phrases for these ideas, for example:
Teenagers commit most crime in British cities. Discuss.
Key terms
Alternatives (incl. plurals, initials, synonyms, different spellings, etc)
teenagers
teenage, teenager, youth, youths, adolescent, adolescence
crime
criminal, anti-social behaviour (or behavior), ASBO, delinquency
British
Britain, UK, United Kingdom, England
cities
city, town, towns, urban, London, Bradford
Note: you do not need to use capital letters (ministry of justice finds the same
articles as Ministry of Justice).
2. Construct a search:
a.
b.
c.
d.
And makes it more specific: anti-social behaviour and youth
Or increases results: anti-social behaviour order or ASBO
Quotation marks find a specific phrase: “anti-social behaviour”
Use an asterisk to find plurals, alternative spellings, etc: teen* for teen,
teenage, teenager, teenagers, etc; behavi*r for behaviour or behavior.
2
Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
3. Then type in your search. Use Search for a quick initial trawl, or searches
with only a small number of ideas:

Use recent searches to search step by step (do one search and then
add another).

For more results, change You are searching to also search the IBSS
and ABI/INFORM Complete databases.
4. Choose Advanced Search for more complex searches, or to find articles by
author or title (use one row of boxes for each idea):

Tick Peer reviewed to opt for peer-reviewed articles only.

Specify date(s) of publication (the date boxes will appear if you choose
an option such as After this date...).

Select only Abstract or Subject heading for more relevant articles.

Search for a specific author (last name, first name) or article title.
5. Using your results:

Click on Citation/Abstract and read to find out if the article is useful.

Click on the SFX button to find full text; search for print copies of the
journal in the Library catalogue.
3
Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts

Found a useful article? Use the keywords and subjects from the citation
(click on the title or Citation/Abstract) in your next search to make it
better.
6. Keeping your results:

Tick in the box to the left of a result to select it, and then click on Email,
Print, Export, or Save as file.

For EndNote Web, Export to RIS (saves as a .txt file). Then:
1. Collect and Import References;
2. Browse for your saved Proquest results file;
3. Choose the Refman RIS Import Option, and your group;
4. Import (references then appear in My References).
4