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 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: How does the process of anticipation influence our visual perception?
- Search: anticipat* AND "visual perception"
- anticipat* searches for anticipate, anticipating, and anticipation
- "visual perception" searches for visual perception as a phrase, not separate words
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: The relevant articles about anticipation are tagged with the Subject Expectations
- New search: put each main idea in their own search box and combine synonyms in the same search box:
Expectations OR Anticipat*
AND "visual perception"
- 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 focused research question.
3. I have too many irrelevant search results. How do I focus them to my assignment requirements and 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, 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 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
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 to login to VPN and clear your browser cache on the Online Library Access page
6. 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
7. 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
