Finding academic resources on some Cults can be challenging, use the techniques and tools below to find academic resources on cults
More Search Terms = Fewer Results:
Start with a simple search, and add search terms to focus your results.
Search with just the important words (keywords), don’t use sentences:
Example: Heaven’s Gate AND brainwashing; instead of ‘did heaven’s gate engage in brainwashing?’
Quotation Marks - Use quotation marks to tell the computer to keep the words together:
Example: “Worldwide Church of God” “Troubled Teen Industry”
Too many search results? Combine keywords using the word AND to narrow your results to more specific aspects of your topic:
Example: cults AND isolation AND family; Heaven’s Gate AND brainwashing
Not enough search results? Combine similar keywords using the word OR to broaden your search results
Example: unification church OR unificationists OR moonies; cults AND (brainwashing OR psychological manipulation)
By default, EBSOhost databases will only match your search terms on the title, subjects, and abstract of the articles in the collection. If you are not getting enough search results, tell the database to search within the full text of the articles as well.
Below the search boxes on the Advanced Search page, select "Search options". Select "Also search within the full text of the articles" under "Expanders":
EBSCOhost databases now offer "natural language searching" which uses AI to process your search query and automatically includes related terms and concepts and allows you to search using a sentence or a question.
Below the search boxes on the Advanced Search page, select "Search options". Select "Natural langauge search":
You can also turn it on or off from your search result page:
Academic Resources will usually not use the popular name for a cult. Use the Subject Thesaurus in Academic Search Complete and SocINDEX to find the "official" names of cults or concepts.
Below the search boxes on the Advanced Search page, click on "Subjects". Enter the term and click search, if you find a good subject term you can select it and add it to your search:
