Treating Addiction on Campus: Grant Writing

    

NOTE: In testing Subject Headings in each database, I discovered that "addiction" was most often associated with Internet addiction, video game addiction, or even sex addiction, whereas substance addictions were usually tagged with Drug Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, and/or Alcoholism.

General OneFile :
     The most user-friendly of our comprehensive databases, it covers almost any topic from a wide range of disciplinary angles and offers lots of full text.  Use the default Subject search to find the best subject heading for your topic (and when you find a good one be sure to look at the "Related Subjects" to see if there's something even better).
     The best general heading for this topic is "College Students."  Open the "Subdivisions" just below for a wide range of subheadings, including "Alcohol use" and "Drug use."  As a main subject you might also try "Substance Abuse Treatment." 
      If the best available subdivision is still too broad, open it and add your own Keywords in the "Search within these results" slot at the upper left.
     User Advisory: When first viewing your retrievals in General OneFile, note that you are seeing only the "Magazines" (popular articles) and must click on the tabs for "Academic Journals" (scholarly articles) or "News" (newspaper articles) to see those results.
    
ProQuest Research Library :
     A comprehensive database with ample full text.  You can preview the available Subject Headings in this database by opening the "Thesaurus" and testing likely options, but combining either "Drug abuse" or "Acoholism" as Subjects with "College Students" as a Subject will get you started.  Another Subject you could combine with "College Students" is "Substance Abuse Treatment."

     A disciplinary database in Education at all levels. The field of Education has its own set of Subject Headings so be sure to browse the “Thesaurus” (above the search slots) for the best "Descriptors." But note that you don't need to find a Descriptor for "college students"--just go down to the "Education Level" menu and choose "Higher Education."  Combine this setting with "Alcohol abuse" and/or "Drug abuse" as Descriptors. 
     User Advisory: ERIC provides access not only to relevant journal literature (citations for these end in a number preceded by EJ—ERIC Journal), but also to research published directly to ERIC (citations for these end in a number preceded by ED—ERIC Document. 

PsycINFO :
     The American Psychological Association use their own Subject vocabulary, so a visit to the "Thesaurus" above the search slots is a good idea. For this topic, combine "College Students" with "Drug abuse" and/or ""Alcohol abuse" and/or "Binge Drinking"--all as Subjects--for a good overview of the scholarly resources available here.
     User Advisory: If what you're searching for are journal articles in English it's a good idea to make these selections under "Limit Your Results" below the search slots.

CINAHL
     An excellent Health Sciences database.  Begin by running a Subject search ("MW Word in Subject heading" from the drop-down menu for each search slot) on a combination of "Alcohol abuse" or "Substance abuse" in the first slot and "College Students" in the slot below.

ScienceDirect :
     Because it’s a large database with a great deal of full text, the absence of Subject searching means that your Keyword searches will often retrieve large sets of articles, many of which mention but don’t discuss your search term(s). One way around this is to limit your initial search to the “Abstract Title Keyword” field. For this topic a good way to begin is to enter--college and students--in one slot and--(drugs or alcohol or substance) and (abuse or addiction) in the other.  Remember, start out with both slots set to Abstract Title Keyword.  And once you have found an article that sounds particularly on-target, click the “Related Articles” link beneath the citation This will open a range of articles on the same topic. 
     User Advisory: Note that you can uncheck "All books," which is recommended if you're looking for articles.  And if you open the "Dates" drop-down menu you'll find a much wider range of options than the default 10 year span.

CQ Researcher :
     Each week CQ Researcher devotes an entire issue to single public policy issue.  For this topic take a look at Drinking on Campus from 2006 and Teen Drug Use from 2011.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA): from the National Institutes of Health, there are many resources here that deal with college-age drinking.  See especially "Publications," "Resources," and "Research Information."

National Insitute on Drug Abuse: Another National Institutes of Health resource with ample data and population-specific resources.

College Drinking: Changing the Culture: From the NIAAA, this site specifically targets alcohol abuse on campus--and note the handy national survey of College Alcohol Policies.

College Binge Drinking: This site belongs to a private addiction treatment company Elements Behavioral Health.  Some interesting resources here extend well beyond alcohol abuse.  And see especially the "Everything Addiction" link under "Resources." 
Note: many of the articles here lack attribution--named authors--but the content itself usually cites legitimate studies and research reports that you can find online.

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD): This 70-year-old organization hosts a wide range of resources.. See especially "For Youth."
 
Wasting the Best and the Brightest:
Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges
and Universities: 2007 report from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia university.

At the College Alcohol Study site at the Harvard School of Public Health look at Research Publications and Resources.

Campus Safety: Substance Abuse: A wide range of linked publications from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Noodlebib guides you through the required data entry for citation in the MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles. It takes care of punctuation, alphabetization and formatting, producing a polished source list for import into Word.