I.  Browsing in PsycInfo

With "browsing" you are sitting down at PSYCHINFO for the first time with your general topic idea. Your goal is to just poke around and "see what is out there" and, most likely, to refine your interests on the basis of the abstracts you read.  Leave yourself an hour or two for this.

*Click on each screen shot to see a larger and more clear image. Use your browser's "back" button to return to the tutorial. If the image quality is poor and you are using MS Internet Explorer, hold your mouse over the image and see if an orange sunset picture square appears. If so, click the sunset to enlarge the image to full size.

From the library homepage, follow the path: Finding articles Databases & Indexes

Social Sciences (or Alphabetical List) then choose PsycInfo from the resulting list of databases.

Choose an issue within one of the broad research questions raised in your personality psychology reader. Write down all the words that come to mind that seem to best describe what you are interested in.  Go back through your list and replace any slang or informal language with more formal language. These are the keywords that you are going to use to begin the browsing phase of your research.

• Begin your browsing by typing in one of your keywords, and let the search engine look for the term in all the fields (that is, leave "Select a Field" as is. This is often called keyword searching. For example, let's say I'm interested in phobias in kids and what causes them. I'll start by typing in phobia. It is best to start with one term at a time, and work your way up to searching more terms in more specific locations.

• This will very likely result in a very large list of results. In this case, over 7,000.

It is important to know that, unlike internet search engines, PSYCHINFO does not sort your search results by relevance. Thus, a really useful article might be 50th on the list or 7,000th. You can use several different kinds of strategies to make sense of this large group of results (remember, we are "browsing" to learn more about a topic).

• Scroll through and choose something that catches your interest. Believe it or not, this can be fun and really isn't too onerous. Just glance through the titles and see what sounds interesting or relevant. Click on the title itself to see the record associated with that title. Notice the different "fields" of information in the record. For example, you see author information, source (journal) information, the language the article is written in and, most importantly, the abstract.

• If the article seems relevant, you want to do 2 things.  First, you probably want to ADD the record to your FOLDER (by clicking on add to folder). Adding a record to your folder saves the record for that session. Note - once you leave PSYCHINFO or let it sit for more than 5 or 10 minutes, you will lose your folder unless you set up your own EbscoHost account (see link within EbscoHost).

• The second thing you want to do is to make note of the subject terms that seem to describe your topic well.  Also, as you look over many articles, make note of any repetition of terms or authors that you notice.  Remember, the idea in the browsing phase is to learn about your topic - that includes learning about the terminology used to describe the topic and learning about prominent authors in the area. 

• Browse through at least a few screens of your initial term (in this example, a few screens worth of the 7,000 phobia hits). Make note of terms, authors, etc. that might help you when you move on to the "searching" phase.

• If scrolling through your search results isn't proving to be helpful because there are too many off-topic articles, try searching with the same key words in more specific places.  For example, enter one of the subject terms you found and searching within "Subject."  

• And/Or enter a repeated phrase you noted and search for that in the abstract....

• You might also try searching for a term in the title if you are looking for a variable that is commonly included in many studies, but not a central focus of all of those studies.  For example, when I do searches for topics related to self-esteem, I usually do at least one pass where I limit my search to articles that self-esteem just in the title - meaning that the author of the article thought self-esteem was a central topic (library indexers decide what the "subjects" are).

Repeat this browsing process for each search term that you feel is relevant. As you are browsing, make sure to take some notes. Write down some of the key words and subject terms that you ran across frequently or ones that seemed to best describe the topic that interests you. Write down the name of an author whose name comes up frequently and/or whose work interests you.  Print out, write down, or put in your "folder" the citation of articles that you might want to consult later. Be very selective though--you are taking notes to perhaps save time later, not actually "searching" at this point.

II. Searching in PSYCHINFO

Your goal in browsing was simply to "get a feel" for what was out there. Now that you are familiar with some of the terminology and maybe even have a better idea of what you want to research, your goal is to get more specific. Do this at a separate session from the browsing to give your brain a break, and leave yourself an hour or so.

For example, let's say that after browsing, I have decided I'm interested in "social phobia."  My interest still remains the causes of the phobia in kids, but I've learned that I specifically care about generalized social phobia. To more specifically narrow my search to these articles, I'll need to start combining terms.

• First I'll double check "social phobia" as a subject term. The good news is that (as with the browsing session) I get lots of hits with that term.

• Next, I'll just add one other term, "kids" ~ I'll leave it as "default fields" since I'm not sure if the term even exists.  I'm combining using "AND" which means I want both terms in my results.

• So the result is no articles found....   I got lots of hits with "social phobia" so the term "kids" must be the problem.   I KNOW there surely must be such research in the 2,000 or so psych journals, each with 15 or so articles, spanning 40 or so years. What to do? Obviously I need to try another term.  How about "children"?  I will enter "children" alone as a search term just to be sure I get some hits. And, indeed, as you see below - plenty of hits.

• So, back to my interests. I combine social phobia in Subject with children in Default.  Below, you'll see I get 99 articles with that combination.  Believe it or not, 99 abstracts is a good result.  It wouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes to skim through the titles and abstracts of many of those records to see if any are relevant and, if some are relevant - make note of those key phrases and subjects and add them to your "Folder."  Also note authors that repeat.

• You need to do this entire search process several different times in order to really have explored the literature. For example, I would want to go back and look through social phobias again with the keyword of "cause" and see what happens. You should also try various combinations of different terms. Remember the general principle of starting off with one term at a time to be sure articles are out there, then combine terms and then search for those terms in more specific locations (e.g., major descriptors) as you need to to get yourself to a manage # of articles to look through.

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Using the Thesaurus

But what if I'm not getting results I can use and I can't think of another term to use?  PSYCHINFO offers a built-in thesaurus which can help you  find out what word a researcher would use.....  For example, I'll often have students want to do research on something like "values" and tell me that they either found too many records to search or no records at all.  If you use the thesaurus, you can see how many other terms there are (each with their own list of related terms) other than just "values"....

This use of the thesaurus is extremely helpful in many circumstances. For example,  researchers are just as likely to use the word "affect" as they are to use its synonym - "mood."  You should consider using the thesaurus for your major search terms at some point just to be sure you aren't missing anything.

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Setting Search Limits

What if I hadn't gotten a nice number of 99 in my above search?  What if I'd gotten 600 -- too many to scroll through titles even?  Remember the options you learned above: try other terms, use the thesaurus, look for terms in more specific parts of the record (e.g., subject, abstract, title).   Be sure to just change one thing at a time so you can figure out what isn't working if something goes wrong.

EbsoHost now offers a set of hyperlinks along the top and side of your search results screen. In this way you can choose a subset of your results to explore (e.g., journal articles only, more specific topics).

Also, you might consider using the limits feature. Use this feature sparingly and note that the vendor (EbscoHost) may have a very different idea what some category terms mean than we do.  You can find the limits on the opening screen of the Advanced Search. Notice all the different options: references available, publication type, etc.

Full-text

Assuming you have started searching for your sources in a timely fashion (i.e., you have time to wait a week or two for interlibrary loan (I.L.L.) articles, my strong advice is to NEVER limit your search to full-text only articles.  You will severely limit your results if you do so.  While more and more articles are available full-text, MANY of your best resources may not be available on-line. In other words, you may actually have to go into the stacks at the library and get an actual book and do some photocopying.  Additionally, I strongly suggest you NEVER limit your search to only articles available in Trexler.  Our library has an impressive collection of key journals available (273 at last count).  However, we are a small college and can't afford to subscribe to all of the 2,500+ psychology journals in existence. The quality of your paper will be determined in large part by the quality of your sources. Don't handicap yourself by overlooking sources you may have to obtain via I.L.L.

Useful Limits to Use Sparingly

So what limits are useful?  Language is a safe bet (see below).  You can click on the box to immediately limit it to English.  Or, if you are fluent in a second language, choose from the list provided (hold down the "control" key to select more than one language).   Really though, language alone will only be marginally helpful in narrowing your search results because many psych articles are in English.

"Publication Type" may be another useful way to limit your results. You can choose multiple entries using the "control" key.  This is especially helpful if you want to choose everything except the many dissertation hits you will get from your search. (Dissertations are the projects people do to get their Ph.D.'s.  In most instances, you will be unable to obtain a dissertation quickly enough to help you with your paper. Often professors will advise against relying on a dissertation for a prospective source if you are doing a project that must be completed within a single semester.)  Alternatively, perhaps your professor has indicated that you have to find an empirical journal article.  You can click on several things to limit to that type of result (e.g., journal & peer reviewed journal). Do not limit yourself to too few resources, however. Again, always use this feature sparingly.

Be aware that "scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles" is often a good limiter, but it will leave out potentially valuable book chapters and invited articles. In general, you should always try your search without limiters first, and you should do multiple searches.

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III.  Double Checking

Before declaring your close, personal relationship with PSYCHINFO over, you need to be sure you have explored all that is out there.  Look over the sources you have and see if anything seems to be missing. For example, are they all older references (e.g., pre-1980's)?  Then be sure to specifically look for more current resources - you may or may not find any depending on the trends in research. Is there a specific author who appears to publish a lot on this topic?  Did you conduct a search looking at all of that author's publications? Did you conduct different searches that, in total, cover all your search terms? If you started to get the same articles repeatedly, that is a good sign that you have searched all there is to search.   When you have a developed your specific hypothesis (and if you are required to have a unique hypothesis) - be sure to return to PSYCHINFO to be sure that it hasn't already been addressed by another researcher.

Once you start obtaining and reading the articles you find, another way of double-checking your work is following the paper trail that the authors have left for you. Look over the articles you have found (and obtained via full-text, the shelves in Trexler or via I.L.L.-- see below).  Are there relevant papers cited in the introductions of articles that you are using?

IV. Physically Retrieving your Articles

You must read the actual articles. Do not write a paper based on abstracts alone. Professors will be able to tell if you do that as your paper will probably be too shallow and vague. Journal articles can be challenging to read. Ask your professor for help, or click on this link for advice on reading journal articles.

Once you identify the journal articles that you want to read, they may be found in several places.

1.  Trexler Library in print form

2.  On-line in full text

3.  Requested via Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

4.  Drive to a nearby library (e.g, Lehigh University).

To find out if Trexler owns a print copy of the journal and/or to see if you might be able to get a copy of the article full-text, first go to the library homepage and select "Finding Articles" and "Journal Locator" and type in your title.  You'll have noticed that EbsoHost also provides information about the availability of each article with the citation information from PSYCHINFO.

For example, the Journal of Personality (issues from 1945-2002) are available in full -text form via Academic Search Premiere (go back to the library homepage, search for articles, and this time choose Academic Search Premiere as your database instead of PSYCHINFO). Issues from 1949-present of that same journal are also on the shelves of Trexler.  The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is only available in print form at Trexler.  The Journal of Personality Assessment is only available in full-test form via Academic Search Premiere (issues from 1975-2002 only).

If Trexler has a copy of the article on its shelves:

• Articles published since 1990 are located on Level A near the Reference desk. They are organized on the shelves by the title of the journal that contains the article.

• Articles published in 1989 or earlier are located on Level C. They are also organized alphabetically by title.

• The back issues (and current issues) of some journal titles may also be found on microfiche or microfilm--the purple binder contains that information. Both are located in the Micromedia room on Level A and are arranged alphabetically by title.

Journal articles that are not owned by the Library or accessible through online databases can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan. Follow the path Finding Articles ILL Article Request Go directly to forms Journal Article. Remember to order materials early--it may take several weeks to receive the materials you need. You may want to consider driving to one of the other local colleges if you need to use materials that they own, but do not have the time to wait for ILL. There is a link on the library's homepage with information about nearby libraries under "Finding Books".

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