Thanks for the review articles tip. (Thanks everyone who replied, there’s a lot of helpful tips here!)
So I have to pay for most studies? I was really hoping for a single huge database of studies somewhere. I mean, the guy who wrote that book “Elephants on Acid”, which is just a book listing around 50 interesting and strange experiments. Where the hell would he find all those studies? Would he pay for access to a journal? I’d actually be willing to pay as long as I got a lot of interesting info from it but then it’d be limited wouldn’t it?
BeepKillBeep
“With regards to your specific inquiry, I start with the most basic core concept. In this case, “violence against men”. I know this will be too broad but by looking at the literature I’ll get an idea of what I need to search for. Looking through various papers I see the term “female-to-male” used frequently. So I change the search to ‘“female-to-male” violence’ and then look again. So you can do iterative refinement this way (although with these term I found a few potentially interesting articles).”
Thanks, I’ll definitely do that from now on.
I was hoping for some sort of shortcut but it really does seem as cumbersome and convoluted and messy as I’ve generally found. Thanks though, this has been very helpful and has sort of brought peace of mind that I was sort of on the right track, you do literally have to go on a hunt for this stuff.
Others please add more if you have more though!
I know this is my question but here’s a tip for Wikipedia (I wanted to make a video on this discovery because it’s been quite… revealing…) CHECK THE “TALK” TAB! If it’s a controversial or politically charged topic the first thing I do is check the talk tab. You see a lot of arguments going on in there over what should and shouldn’t be allowed on there. You also tend to realize quite quickly that there are a few users at the top with strong political biases who strictly follow rules for some people’s articles yet ignore them or enforce them extra strictly depending on what favors their side.
You also see things that were rejected that people TRIED to add. But thanks, I try to use Wikipedia like that, just for a general idea, check the sources etc.
Thanks for the Google “quotes” tip. It worked, I tried “female on male abuse” and got 4,000 results and 12,000 for “male on female abuse”.
By the way this might sound ridiculous to some people but something that has got me very, very worried (and I mean that and I think others should be outraged by this) is what one of the Google executives said recently.
That they’re going to start removing certain search results (and start moving them to “the back” meaning they’ll be even harder to find) that they deem “hateful” or “fake news” etc. This is extremely alarming to me, not because I’m hateful or consume “fake news” but because what is defined as “hateful”? For instance, and I know they all aren’t like this, I’ve been called hateful for talking about male rape victims. So would Google suddenly start hiding those results? The same could easily go the other way, if conservatives got into high places in the media or in the software industry they could start censoring pro-abortion or climate change research that they don’t like. It’s a little too close to Stalin for my liking.
So while I’m happy to use Google right now I’m curious as to whether there are any other sites that aren’t as commercial but are just as powerful? The internet is such an awesome tool, I don’t want it to become cable TV.
Thanks you so much for that! That’s exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! I’ll definitely try Wiki. i don’t often use it’s search function so I’ll take a look at that. I found a site today “wikibooks” and also “archive.org” that have come in really handy today for some other stuff I’m interested in!
I’m glad to see you’ve noticed this annoying trend in search results. It no longer seems to be about quality but about who pays the most. I know Google claims to not work that way but, I don’t know, the search results are far too predictable.
The single most important thing to do is to track everything back to its source. If an article says “According to statistics from the US Bureau of Labor…”, then go to the US Bureau of Labor statistics. If it says “In an interview with People Magazine, General So-and-So said…”, then go to the People magazine interview. Make sure that the original source is actually saying what the secondary source claims it says. And if the secondary source doesn’t give their source, then ignore them.
There are a number of databases, but due to a tangled web of publisher ownership and licensing no single database is comprehensive. Google Scholar is pretty good at searching through lots of these databases, but it won’t give you access to every article.
To find the original publications, look into your local public and local libraries. There’s a good chance that they’ll offer access to a number of research databases that include the original articles. My tiny local library is part of a state-wide system that lets me use some of the EBSCO databases, from home and without cost. The local state university library is also open to the public. All adult residents of the state can get an account, borrow print resources, and access online resources while on campus.