Setting limits is the way that you tell the database what kinds of items to exclude in your results. You can set limits before you search or after you have generated a results page. I recommend setting limits first so that you are tempted by content that does not meet the criteria of your assignment. 

Setting Limits from the Main Search Page:

Setting Limits from a Results List:

Date Published: You can limit results to only the last 5 or 10 years, or leave it unchanged and go back a hundred years or more

Language: Research is a global endeavor, if you don't speak languages other than English, make that selection

Population Group: Some research is done on animals. If you want studies with human participants, make that selection

Methodology: You are interested in the empirical literature (not review articles, editorials etc.) so select empirical study as your methodology type. 

Peer Reviewed: Technically, there is no popular content indexed in this database. Although the content is technically scholarly, it has not all gone through the extra step of being reviewed by a panel of subject specialists. If your assignment specifically requires peer reviewed content, make sure to select this box. 

Depending on your research assignment, there are quite a few limits that you could set but you want to be careful. Setting unnecessary limits can dramatically restrict your results. 

In particular, you should avoid checking the "Linked Full Text" limit because we have services available to get items that only appear as a citation or abstract.