Research Guides: Write a Literature Review: Database Searching

Find Databases to Search

We recommend that you consult your discipline's research guide for database suggestions. You can browse our full list of research guides.

You will mostly use subject-specific databases in order to find sources for your literature review. However, some interdisciplinary databases have special features that make this easier, and here are a few that should prove useful in that regard:

Web of Science
Citation databases that can be searched by topic and that has connections between sources, including journal articles and conference papers, that cite each other. It includes searches by cited reference as well as regular searches by keywords, title, and author.
Social Sciences Citation Index
SSCI is a smaller selection of publications in the social sciences and related fields included in Web of Science. This unique index lets you sort results by the number of times an article or book has been cited. This helps you identify articles that are most influential in your topic area and links you to other, more recent papers that cite them.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar also allows you to find connections between sources, including journal articles and conference papers, that cite each other.
ScienceDirect
Portal to full-text journal articles and books in the sciences, technology, medicine, and social sciences published by Elsevier.