Subject Guides in the Health and Life Sciences

Psychology 100B: Research Methods in Psychology

Introduction
Getting Started
Selecting the Right Source 
     Primary vs. Secondary Sources in Selected Databases 
      What's the Difference? Catalogs vs. Databases         
Searching & Retrieving Journal Articles in Psychology 
     Refining a Search
Writing Your Research Proposal  

Introduction

The material on this web site will enable you to:

• Develop an efficient and effective strategy for locating items that address your information need.
• Select a topic that is the right size (neither too broad nor too narrow) in order to develop a researchable question.
• Differentiate between magazines and journals in order to select appropriate material for your paper or proposal.
• Differentiate between a primary and a secondary article in order to select appropriate material for your paper or proposal.
• Differentiate between a library catalog and a database in order to determine which type of resource will meet your information need.
• Determine when it is appropriate to use either a catalog or a database in order to locate items that address your information need.
• Select an appropriate database to search to retrieve material related to your research question.
• Design an effective and efficient search strategy in that database in order to locate articles that address your research question.
• Modify the search strategy to narrow or broaden the search as needed using appropriate features of the database—that is, limits, truncation, advanced search options, thesaurus searching, etc.—in order to improve your search results.
• Use UC-eLinks to locate either the full text online or the library location for articles needed in order to acquire the material located in the databases.
• Initiate an interlibrary loan request in order to acquire material identified in databases but not available at UCLA.
• Read a citation in order to differentiate between books, book chapters, and journal citations.
• Recognize the principles of intellectual property issues in order to reference the resources properly and avoid committing plagiarism.
• Write citations in an acceptable style, most likely APA format, in order to comply with the requirements of scholarly journals in psychology.

 

Getting Started

For a general overview of research paper planning (including tricks for generating ideas for papers, assistance in selecting the right size topic, or learning how to find background information), review the Research Paper Planner.

For more tips on selecting the right size topic, review Broadening or Narrowing a Topic.

For an overview of information on any topic in the field of psychology, review the Biomedical Library's resources in Psychology subject guides, linked in the upper left-hand column of this page. These pages include information on locating reference sources (encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks) and information on laws and ethics, psychological tests, and writing research papers.

 

Selecting the Right Source

Use the Scholarly or Popular? guide to learn about the characteristics of scholarly/academic sources and popular publications.

Review Selecting the Right Source to find out when it is appropriate to use newspaper articles, magazine articles, journal articles, books, or web sites for your papers, projects, and research proposals.

What is the difference between primary and secondary literature? Complete the Primary v. Secondary Tutorial to learn when to use primary or secondary literature, and how to tell if the items you find in your research are primary or secondary. 

Searching for Primary Versus Secondary Sources in Selected Databases

PsycINFO (database including psychological materials): You can limit your search by methodology used to produce the research. To do this, use the Advanced Search screen. Scroll down to the PsycINFO Indexes and Limits (under the search boxes). Click on "Browse Methodology" to view all methodologies indexed. Useful methodology types would be "empirical study" for primary literature and "literature review" for secondary literature. To search PsycINFO using these terms, click on the box next to the term and then click "Add to search."

PubMed (database of biomedical literature): Click the Limits tab-- located below the search box--to view publication types. The article type "review" will limit your search to secondary literature.

Web of Science (database including social sciences, physical sciences, and humanities materials): Select "document type" from the pull-down box on the right of the first search box. The search box is replaced with a list of document types. A useful publication type would be "review" to limit your search to secondary literature.

NOTE: In all three databases, reading the abstract of the material located will give you a lot of information. Abstracts for primary literature articles have descriptions of the study-- methods section, subjects used, result, conclusions. Abstracts for secondary literature articles often talk about the original research that was read to produce the literature review.

What's the Difference? Catalogs vs. Databases

• What is the difference between a library catalog and a journal article database?

A library catalog allows you to search for items that are owned by or made available through the library you are using. So the UCLA Library Catalog will allow you find out what books and journals we own and will direct you to their locations. It will also give you links to anything UCLA has access to electronically.

A journal article database, on the other hand, allows you to search the contents of journals to locate articles on specific topics. Keep in mind that article databases do NOT just search journals that are owned by UCLA. So finding an article in a database does not guarantee that you will find the journal at UCLA. See the information below on UC-eLinks for how to determine if UCLA owns the item you need.

• When should I use the catalog and when should I use a journal article database?

Use the catalog when you already have complete citations to the articles you need. For example, you would use the UCLA Library Catalog to find out if UCLA owns the journal you seek and if so where to locate it. You can also use the guides to learn how to locate books in the UCLA Library Catalog by searching for titles, authors, or subjects.

Use a journal article database when you need to locate journal articles on a particular subject or by a particular author. For more information on searching article databases, read the Searching & Retrieving Journal Articles in Psychology section of this guide.

Keep in mind that the library does not have access to every journal you will encounter as you search the various databases available to you. Finding an article citation in a database does not ensure that UCLA (or even other UCs) subscribes to the journal, either electronically or in print.

To discover if UCLA has access to the journal you need, either online or in print, use the orange UC-eLinks button within the database. Read more information on using UC-eLinks (Adobe PDF document). 

If UCLA does not have access to the items you need, you may request them from other libraries using the interlibrary loan (ILL) system. The ILL system is free to current UCLA students, staff, and faculty. Read the ILL page to learn more and make requests.

 

Searching and Retrieving Journal Articles in Psychology

See the Resources in Psychology Subject Guide for a list of databases specially selected for psychology and related subject areas.

Dissecting a Database: Teaching Yourself How to Search (Adobe PDF document) contains search tips applicable to any database and tips on determining the specific features of the database you wish to use.

Review guides to help you to search PsycINFO (Adobe PDF document), PubMed (Adobe PD document), and Web of Science (Adobe PDF Document). 

Refining a Search

• Got too many or too few results? Complete the Name That Term! Tutorial to learn techniques for expanding and narrowing your search by including descriptors.
• Dissecting a Database (Adobe PDF document) includes tips on using wildcards or truncation symbols to search on abbreviated forms of words and tips on how to find more articles that are similar to an article you like.
• Review Cited Reference Searching (Adobe PDF document) to find out how to use a special feature of the Web of Science database to locate more up-to-date articles on your topic.

Can't figure out if your citation is for an article, a book, or a book chapter? Learn How to Read a Citation!

 

Writing Your Research Proposal

Review the Bruin Success with Less Stress Tutorial for tips on when to cite, how to cite, and how to avoid plagiarism.

Read Citing Your Sources for assistance with using American Psychological Association (APA) citation format.

 

This guide was created by Joan Kaplowitz, PhD, MLIS, and Catherine Brown, MLIS. Updated by Amy Chatfield, MLS, Psychology Liaison Librarian, UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. Contact Amy at achatfie@library.ula.edu with questions or comments.