Check out the library's self-paced tutorial How do I search library databases? to learn the basics of database searches.
1. How do I search for articles about my research topic?
- 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, benefits, effects, or causes 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 hits, 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 to your search
- 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?
- 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, so you get current research
- Age: to focus to specific age groups studied
- Subject: Major Heading, to focus to your interest areas
4. How do I identify the specific age groups that have been studied in my research area? How do I then focus to articles that study specific age groups, 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 the heading Age and click on the arrow next to it to open the list of age groups
- Look at the number in parentheses next to each Age Group to see how many articles include people in this age group in their studies.
- Check the box(es) beside specific Age Groups to focus to articles that studied those age groups
- 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
5. How do I preview the abstract/summary of articles 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
6. 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 to login to VPN and clear your browser cache on the Online Library Access page
7. I can't find anything on my topic. 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
- As you scroll through the search hits, look at the assigned Subjects (tags), and see if they match your search words
- 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
