Title Text
PSYC 3F40
PsycInfo Library Workshop
Me, your librarian
jdingle@brocku.ca
Finding and evaluating sources
John Dingle
Help with....
Refining a research topic
Managing and citing sources
- Psyc Info in the research process
- Basic search strategies
- Psyc Info-specific tips
- Managing and citing sources
Today:
What is Psyc Info?
What does it do?
1. Dr. Martini writes an article
Transition to kindergarten for children with autism spectrum disorder: A focus group study with ethnically diverse parents, teachers, and early intervention service providers.
2. The article is accepted and published by a journal
Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities
3. The article is indexed by Psyc Info
This article is about:
AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS
RACIAL AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCES
SCHOOL TRANSITION
It is an EMPIRICAL STUDY that used FOCUS GROUPS
What's in Psyc Info?
- 4,163,177 records
- 80% journals, virtually all peer-reviewed
- 11% books and book chapters
- 12% dissertations
The key place to search for psychology literature.
Basic Search Strategy
Basic Search Strategy
1. Formulate a research question.
2. Identify major topic(s) in the question.
3. Use these to generate keywords.
4. Combine these using techniques that maximize results.
5. Analyze search results and repeat process.
Basic Search Strategy
1. Formulate a research question.
How does adolescent bullying affect academic performance?
Basic Search Strategy
2. Identify major topic(s).
How does adolescent bullying affect academic performance?
Concept 1: bullying
Concept 2: academic performance
Concept 3: adolescence
Basic Search Strategy
3. Use these to generate keywords.
Consider related or synonymous concepts
Concept 1: bullying, bullies, bully, bullied, victim
Concept 2: academic performance, school performance, grades, GPA, college admission
Concept 3: adolescence, adolescents, teenage, high school
Basic Search Strategy
4. Combine these using techniques to maximize results.
- Boolean operators (AND/OR)
- Exact phrase (" ")
- Truncation (*)
Boolean Operators (AND/OR)
Combine synonyms or related concepts with OR:
bullying OR bully OR bullied OR victim
Combine different concepts with AND
bullying AND adolescent
Exact phrases
Enclose whole phrases in " "
"school performance" OR "academic performance"
adolescent OR "high school"
Truncation
Find all variations of a word by using * :
bully OR bullied OR bullies OR bullying
IS THE SAME AS
bull*
Practice
Group 1 - bit.ly/2cMYigc
Group 2 - bit.ly/2cTa1h2
Group 3 - bit.ly/2cy0uZs
Group 4 - bit.ly/2cy08BN
Sample - bit.ly/2cjYcRu
Term Finder
Look up standardized terms used in PsycInfo
Term Finder
Bullying =======> {Bullying}
Academic performance ====> {Academic achievement}
Filters
- Peer-review
- Dates
-
Methodology
- Empirical Study
- Clinical Trial
- Literature Review
- Subject Groups
- Population (Animal, Human, Men, Women, Transgender)
- Age
- Standardized Tests or Measures
Filters
Extremely useful
Better than using search terms
Cited References
- All references cited BY an article
AND
- All times an article WAS CITED after publication
Cited References
Citation Management
Zotero
Mendeley
Keep your sources organized
Automatically generate citations
researchguides.library.brocku.ca/citationmanagement
APA Style
Don't trust a citation manger - double check your formatting.
researchguides.library.brocku.ca/styleguides
Thank you!
Questions?
PSYC 3F40 Psyc Info
By jdingle
