9: Subject Specific Database

My search string is "prison AND reentry AND society  AND  challenge". I chose to use Google Scholar as my database which gave me 14,200 results as compared to ASP that returned 5 results. Although both searches gave relevant results, I would say that obviously google gave more since there were thousands more options even though I was quite specific.

When comparing the 2 searches, google results can be narrowed by keywords, author, publication, date, types of collection, legal opinions/journals. ASP can be narrowed by search terms, full text, scholarly, references, publish date, publish type, language, cover story, image quick view, PDF full text, # of pages, doc type and, publication.

Of the number of results mentioned above, I would say 3 of the 5 from ASP are relevant and countless are relevant from google scholar. There were way too many results for me to go through them all and see how many were relevant but on the first page alone, 6 out of 10 were relevant. Google had the 6 readily available whereas ASP had 2 available in full text and 1 available with Find-It.

Since working with databases, my research question hasn't changed but has been somewhat answered, although not completely. My question hasn't changed because it is a specific question which is narrow enough to find results when searching for information.

The hardest part about composing my research question was focusing it on the right source. Instead of focusing on the prison system, I am now focused on the actual prisoners and their challenges when reentering society.