Psychology Research

Finding Articles

Top

Journal articles are the primary way psychology research is disseminated. Start with the following three databases in the EBSCOhost database system.

Academic Search Premier via EBSCOhost
This database helps you find articles in the leading psychology journals. It is multidisciplinary and up-to-date.

PsycINFO
Contains more than 2 million citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, all in psychology and related disciplines, dating as far back as the 1800s.

PsycARTICLES
Contains more than 40,000 articles from 56 journals - 45 published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and 11 from allied organizations. It includes all journal articles, letters to the editor and errata from each journal. Coverage spans 1985 to present.

The databases listed above cover the psychology literature quite well. However, there are some other useful databases:

ScienceDirect
Contains more than 100 hundred full-text psychology journals published by Elsevier, one of the world's leading scientific publishers.

SAGE Journals Online
SAGE Journals Online provides full-text access to peer-reviewed journals in the social sciences and other subject areas.

MEDLINE via PubMed
Contains citations and author abstracts from more than 4,800 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. The database contains over 12 million citations dating back to the mid-1960's. Coverage is worldwide, but most records are from English language sources or have English abstracts.

Business Source Complete via EBSCOhost
Contains references and full text from business journals. Useful for topics related to organizational psychology.

ERIC via EBSCOhost
ERIC, the Educational Resource Information Center, provides access to education literature and resources. Useful for topics related to children.

Finding Books

Top

New psychological research is typically disseminated through journal articles, but books can contain excellent summaries of existing research and can be an important component of your research. Just remember to look at the publication dates and note that journal articles may give you more recent research.

To locate books owned by Niagara University Library, use the Library Catalog.

The ebrary electronic book collection offers full-text access to many titles.

If you want to search for books owned by other libraries, too, then try searching WorldCat, a catalog that contains references to more than 57 million items owned by 9,000 libraries worldwide. Don't worry - if you need a book owned by another library, you can request it. To learn how, jump to the section called Obtaining Materials NU Library Does Not Own.

 

Finding Tests

Top

PsycTESTS
Full-text psychological tests and measures. Is also a source of information about the tests.  

Finding Films

Top

There are three places to look for educational video and documentaries owned by Niagara University Library.

  1. The Educational DVD Collection is located on the first floor of the Library.
    This collection exceeds 1,500 titles and can be viewed and searched via the NU Library Catalog.
  2. Films on Demand. More than 6,000 video titles are available for streaming anywhere on campus.
  3. The web is a good source of video as well. Refseek links to some of the best sites: http://www.refseek.com/directory/educational_videos.html

Finding Facts, Statistics, and Web Sites

Top

The Library has a number of excellent reference books in the field of psychology. For example:

  • Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behaviorial Science
  • Encyclopedia of Human Behavior
  • Encyclopedia of Psychology

These and other titles are located in the Reference Collection on the first floor near call number Ref BF 31.

Tip: Reference books can help you locate keywords to help you perform better searches. For example, suppose you are doing a paper on subliminal perception. If you take a few minutes to look in a psychology encyclopedia, you will learn more about the topic and the names of important researchers from the past. You will also find related keywords like mere exposure effect, perceptual defense, and priming.

If you are looking for specific information on the World Wide Web, visit a search engine like Google and type your keywords in.

If you would like to browse directories of psychology web sites, try these:

Obtaining Materials NU Library Does Not Own

Top

If you need an article or a book that NU Library does not own, you can make use of Interlibrary Loan to obtain it.

Tip: In a hurry? If the article or book you need is owned by another library in Western New York, you can visit that library and use their resources on site (view a list of Western New York library web sites).

Please note: If you wish to borrow a book from another Western New York library, you can get an InfoPass card at the Reference Desk.

Citing Your Sources

Top

Format your paper and cite your sources according to the:

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Ref BF76.7 .P83 2010)

This manual is the definitive source, but you will find some online guides as well.

APA Style Tips (provides examples, not the complete manual)
http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.aspx

Robert Delaney at Long Island University
http://www2.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citapa.htm

Try a Google search of "APA Style" to see other guides.

Tip: Please talk to your professor if you have questions about how to cite your sources.