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 question?
- Identify the main ideas/keywords of your topic and use those as your search words
- Each article in a database has assigned tags that represent their main ideas: words or shorts phrases about their main concepts 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: Can young children learn language from watching TV?
- Main concepts: "language learning" AND TV
- Combine with AND to search for all of your concepts at once
- Putting quotation marks around "language learning" searches for it as a phrase, not separate words
- Don't add young children to the search - we'll focus to this age group in the search results
2. How do I focus to specific age groups, i.e. like young children from the example?
- Use the Refine Results sidebar to the left of your search hits
- Scroll down the heading Age and click on the arrow to open a short list of age groups
- Click on Show More at the bottom of the short list to open the full list of age groups
- Example::check the box beside Preschool age (2-5 years) and then click on Update
- This focuses the search results to articles about studies with preschool children
3. I have too many irrelevant search hits. How do I focus them to my assignment requirements and research interest areas?
- Use options in the Refine Results sidebar to the left of your search hits to focus them to sources more relevant to your assignment needs and more specific research areas of interest
- You can focus your search hits to:
- Academic Journals to focus to articles from peer-reviewed journals
- Source Types, such as journal articles, books, newspapers, or magazines
- Publication Date, so you get the most recent research
- Subject: Major Heading, to focus to your interest areas
- Example: for your lab report, you are supposed to use research-based journal articles with up to date research. Under Refine Results:
- check the box beside Academic Journals
- move the Publication Date scroll bar over to 2014 to present
- check the boxes beside Journals and Academic Journals under Source Types to find research-based articles
4. 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
- Subjects (tags) also help you identify the specific issues around your topic so you can give it direction and develop it into a focused research question.
- Example: The articles are tagged with television, not TV. Articles about language learning are also tagged with vocabulary, language development, and language acquisition
- Move each concept into their own search box and use OR combine them with their synonyms
- OR tells the database to search for articles tagged with ANY of these concepts
- Revised example search:
"language learning" OR vocabulary OR "language development" OR "language acquisition"
AND TV OR television
5. How do I preview the abstract/summary of an article from the list of search results?
- 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 pdf Full Text or HTML Full Text links
- Click on the Check 360 Link for Full Text link to see if this article is available to read in other library databases
7. How can I tell if an article I'm reading is an Empirical Study article or a Review article?
- Search for the article title in the above PsycINFO/PsycARTICLES search box
- Click on the Article Title in the search results (NOT the Full Text online links) to open the full record for the article.
- Scroll down to the Methodology heading in the article record
- If the methodologies listed are Empirical Study and/or Quantitative Study, it's an empirical study
- If the methodologies listed are Systematic Review and/or Meta Analysis and/or Literature Review, it's a review study
8. I can't find anything on my research question. 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
- Use the PsycINFO Thesaurus to identify the words that PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES use to describe your disorders or topics
- 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
