1. How do I search for articles about my research area?
- Identify the keywords of your topic and use those as your search words.
- Each book and article has tags assigned to it, words or shorts phrases that make each book or article searchable
- You want your search words to match those tags.
- Words like impact, issues, effects, or factors are not used as tags
- Example topic: Does physical exercise have an impact on adolescents with depression?
- Search words: "physical exercise" depression
- "physical exercise" searches for physical exercise as a phrase, not separate words
- Don't add adolescents to the search - focus to this Age Group in the search results
2. How do I know my search words match the tags assigned to articles about my research question?
- As you scroll through the search results, look at the assigned Subjects (tags), and see if they match your search words
- Example: Some of the articles are tagged with physical activity, while some are tagged with exercise.
- Add physical activity and college students to your search
- Click on Advanced Search at the top of the search results to open multiple search boxes
- New Search: exercise OR "physical activity" AND depression
- Use OR to combine key concepts with their synonyms within the search box
- OR finds sources tagged with any of these search words/phrases
- Use AND to combine search boxes
- AND finds sources tagged with all of the key concepts
- Subjects (tags) also help you identify the specific issues around your topic so you can give it direction and develop it into a researchable topic
3. I have too many irrelevant search results. How do I focus them to my assignment requirements and my research interests?
- Open the All Filters sidebar to find options for focusing your search results to your assignment requirements and to your research interests
- Click on the All Filters button at the top of the list of search results to open this sidebar
- You can focus your search results to:
- Peer-Reviewed: to focus to articles from peer-reviewed journals
- Source Types, such as journal articles, books, newspapers, or magazines
- Publication Date, check the box beside Past 10 Years to focus to current research
- Age: to focus to specific age groups studied
- Subject: Major Heading, to focus to your interest areas
4. How do I preview the abstract/summary of an article from the list of search results?
- Look for the abstract beneath the article title in the list of search results (click on Show More at the end of the shortened abstract to open the full abstract)
- Click on the title link to open the full article record, which includes the article abstract and other information about the article such as author affiliation and citation information
5. How do I access the article so I can read the whole thing?
- Look for the Access Options drop down menu or pdf Full Text or HTML Full Text buttons
- Click on the Check 360 Link for Full Text button to see if the article is available to read in other library databases
- If you get an error message trying to access an article, follow the troubleshooting steps on the Online Library Access page to login to VPN and clear your browser cache
6. How do I focus search results to review articles like literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses?
- Open the All Filters sidebar in the list of search results:
- Click on Methodology to see a list of methodologies used
- Check the boxes beside Literature Review, Systematic Review, and Meta-Analysis and then click on Apply
7. How do I identify specific populations that have been studied in my research area? How do I then focus to articles that study specific populations, i.e. like adolescents from the example?
- Click on the All Filters button at the top of the list of search results to open the All Filters sidebar
- Scroll down to the headings Age, Gender, and Population and click on the arrow next to each of them to open the list of age groups, genders, and populations studied.
- Look at the number in parentheses next to each to see how many articles include people in these age, gender, and population categories in their studies.
- To focus the search results to articles that study the population types that you want to use for your study, check the box(es) beside specific categories
- Example:check the box beside Adolescence (13-17 years) and then click on Apply
- This focuses the search results to articles about studies with adolescents
8. How do I identify Populations, Methodologies, and Tests for my research area?
- Open the All Filters sidebar to find options for focusing your search results to your assignment requirements and to your research interests
- Click on the All Filters button at the top of the list of search results to open this sidebar
- Scroll down the heading Methodology and click on the arrow next to it to open the list of methodologies used
- Scroll down to the headings Age, Gender, and Population headings and click on the arrow next to them to open lists of study population characteristics
- Scroll down to the heading Tests & Measures to open a a list of study tests and measures used
- Go to Find Tests once you've chosen a test for your experiment to get the test
9. How do I identify articles that cite an article I've chosen?
- Web of Science: use the Web of Science database to identify articles that cite your article:
- Enter your article title and select Title from the dropdown menu by the search box
- Look for Times Cited: # to the right of your search hits - click on the number to get a list of articles that have cited your article
- Click on Full Text from Publisher to read the article
10. I can't find anything on my research area. What do I do?
- The search words you're using to describe your topic may not match the tags that PsycINFO or PsycARTICLES has assigned to books and articles on your research question
- There may not be research tying your main ideas together yet.
- Try searching for your main ideas separately and linking their findings together
- If you've found one article that's relevant for your topic, look through the sources in its References list to see if any of them are also relevant to your research
