1. How do I search for articles about the disorders I diagnosed?
- 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, factors, effects, effective, or causes are not used as tags
- Example disorder: conduct disorder
- Search: "conduct disorder"
- Put a phrase in quotation marks to search for its words together, not as separate words
- "conduct disorder" searches for conduct disorder as a phrase, not separate words
2. I have too many irrelevant search hits. How do I focus them?
- Use Refine Results on the sidebar of your search hits to focus them to sources more relevant to your assignment needs
- You can focus your search hits to:
- Academic Journals to focus to articles from peer-reviewed journals
- publication date, so you get the most current research
- Subject: focus to the specific aspects of the disorder you need for your paper, like diagnosis or risk factors
- Example: for your research paper, you are supposed to use scientific journal articles with up to date research
- Under Refine Results:
- check the box beside Scholarly (peer-reviewed) Journals
- move the Publication Date scroll bar over to 2000 to present
- under Subject, click on Show More and select risk factors
3. How do I focus my search hits to specific risk factors or symptoms depicted in the film?
- Add the symptom or risk factor to your search words using AND
- AND searches for articles tagged with all of the words/phrases that AND combines
- Example: How does family life impact the conduct disorder?
- Search: "conduct disorder" AND famil*
- *famil searches for family and families
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
- Example: The list of search hits includes articles tagged with Family and articles tagged with Parent. They are used interchangeably.
- Add Famil* or Parent* to your search to get articles that are tagged with either
- 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
5. 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
6. I can't find anything on my disorder. What should I do?
- The search words you're using to describe your disorder 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
