FINDING ARTICLES IN PSYCHOLOGY JOURNALS

PSYCINFO

 

PsycINFO provides indexing and abstracts for over one million articles in 1,700 journals from over 50 countries and also includes abstracts for dissertations, books and book chapters ranging in date from 1887 to the present.  Many of the more current articles will be available full-text.  For those citations with no full-text, check to see if North Park owns the journal.  If not, you can request articles through interlibrary loan.

 

1.      Go to North Park University Library’s homepage (http://www.northpark.edu/library)

2.      At the library’s homepage, click on “Databases/Articles.”

3.      Choose Databases A-Z or Databases by Subject.

4.      Select PsycInfo. In the next window click on PsycInfo again.

5.      Enter a search term in the Find box. The results will tell you if the library has the journal that is being cited, or if the article is available full-text. 

6.      When you see your results list, click on the highlighted title of the article in order to read an abstract (summary) of the article. 

“Full Text” or “Linked Full Text” allows you to read the full-text article.  Click on the link to get the article.  Sometimes you may click on several links to get to the actual article.

7.      You can print or e-mail your results.

 

Limiting Your Search

·        North Park holdings (journals you can find at North Park’s library)
  • Linked Full Text

·        Publication Type: by selecting Journal Articles you can eliminate books, dissertations, and reports from your results.

·        The Advanced Search tab on the menu at the top of the screen gives you more search options, such as searching by an author’s name.

 

Expanding Your Search

  • Click on the Thesaurus at the top of the screen to find more search terms for your subject.  You can also look at the “subjects” of a record to find more terms.
  • Connect similar terms with or:  multicultural or diversity
  • Truncate words with *     mother* will find mother and mothers and motherly and motherhood

 

 

Sample APA article citation:

 

Borman, W.C., Hanson, M.A., Oppler, S.H., Pulakos, E.D., & White, L.A. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisory performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved October 23, 2000, from PsycARTICLES database.

 

SAMPLE SEARCH Using PsycInfo

 

Go to the PsycInfo database on the Library website.

 

1.      Find some articles about body image.  In the find box, type body image.  Click on Search. 

How many results did you find?  ___________

 

2.      Let’s limit this search to just journal articles as opposed to book chapters and dissertations.  Click on the tab that says “Refine Search” and open the dialogue box by “Publication Type.”  Select “Journal Article.”  How many results do you have now? _____________

 

3.      Let’s limit this search to body image and old people.  Click on the tab that says “Refine Search.” and add the words: and elderly.

How many articles are there when you search for body image and elderly?

 

4.      When I click on one of these records and look at the subject descriptors I see that PsycInfo uses the word “aged” instead of “elderly” to describe this population.  Repeat the search, using body image and aged.  How many results do you get now? _________

 

5.      Now let’s limit this search to only those articles published since 1998.  Click on the tab that says “Refine Search.” In the Year of Publication boxes enter the years 1998 and 2004. Combine this search with the above searches.  How many articles are there? ______________

 

6.      North Park does not have all the journals that are indexed in PsycInfo, so let’s limit this search to only those journals that North Park has.  Click on the “Refine Search” tab and click the box that says “North Park Holdings.”  How many articles are there? ______________    Are any of these articles full text? ______

 

 

Finding the articles:

  • If the publication is at North Park Library, you will find it on the first floor in alphabetical order (unless it’s before 1990, in which case it’s on lower level).
  • If the publication is “full-text” you can click on it and read the complete article on the computer.
  • You can check Serials Solutions (at the top of the list of databases) to see if the journal is available full text on another database that we have.
  • If it isn’t at North Park or available full-text, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan.  At the library home page, click on Interlibrary Loan.  Fill out the article request form and you should get your article in about a week.