This page walks you through the process of conducting a search in the PsycInfo database.
PsycInfo uses an advanced search form with multiple rows of search boxes.
sibling relationships
AND emerging adulthood
Choosing keywords (search terms) is a very important part of conducting your literature search. You may need to experiment with multiple terms to find the ones that bring up the best results. This might be a related term like a synonym, or perhaps a broader or narrower related term.
The following screenshot shows a search result in PsycInfo with the Subjects list:
Note how the subject "Emerging Adulthood" exactly matches my original search term. This lets me know this is a good term to continue to use. I can also see options for specific age groups, like Young Adulthood, that might also work.
Note how the subject "Sibling Relations" is slightly different from my original search term of Sibling Relationships. This lets me know that I might try a future search using this variant keyword.
One way to keep track of different search terms you use is to create a keyword table. This can also help you think through different ways to search on your topic, as well as how your topic might be narrowed or expanded in order to bring up more relevant articles related to different aspects of your topic.
Concept 1 Sibling Relationships |
Concept 2 Emerging Adulthood |
|
Synonyms and |
Sibling Relations |
Young Adulthood adolescent development |
Try broadening or narrowing your search terms that make up your research topic.
You may also need to think about broadening or narrowing the research topic itself. This can bring in related literature that may not be exactly on your specific research topic, but can inform your overall understanding of the topic.
When you only have two concepts, you may need to add in a third concept. Or if you have three or more concepts that make up your research question, you may need to search on just two of them at a time.
Here is an example search showing how to combine together multiple search terms:
"sibling relationships" OR "sibling relations"
AND "emerging adulthood" OR "young adulthood"
AND "well being" OR depression
The initial advanced search form includes a set of Search Options, further down on the page underneath the search form. You can set up filters here to narrow your search.
Alternatively, (and this is how your Psychology Librarian usually prefers to do it), you can narrow your search after you run it on the search results page.
There are many different filters to choose from. These are the most popular ones:
Use the date slider if you want to limit to more recent studies, such as those published in the last 5-10 years.
Use this filter if you want to limit to just academic journals or books, etc. However, unless you have a specific requirement to use only journal articles, it is not recommended to filter in that way. For example, book chapters can also be a very good source. The Library has many e-books available.
Also note that above the Source Types filter is an option to Exclude Dissertations. This is recommended, as generally most professors will guide students away from dissertations (book length reports written by graduate students in order to obtain the doctorate degree).
Especially useful when you are focusing on a particular age group. Although "emerging adults" is a subject term, it is possible that not all relevant articles will include that terminology. You may also try the Young Adulthood age group limiter, for example.
Highly recommended when you need to fulfill an assignment requirement to find empirical articles. This is where you will find ability to limit to "empirical study" as well as more specific types of empirical research studies.
Literature reviews are also included as a Methodology type. These types of articles can be useful to provide an overview of a topic. Literature review bibliographies are a rich source of recommendations for other articles to read on your topic.
When you are viewing a single search result, there is a Tools menu on the right-hand side. If your screen is small, it may be hidden and will need to be expanded by locating and clicking on the double arrow icon on the far right of your screen.
Here are some of the tools that you may find to be useful:
This creates a running list of articles that you are interested in. Keep in mind that this Folder will only be active for a single active search session (unless you create an account with the database).
Email yourself a citation and link back to the article.
If you add a list of articles to a Folder; you can then go to the Folder later (use the link in the blue bar across the top of the database) and email yourself the entire list of articles.
Get a copy and paste APA citation (see the Citing Sources section of this research guide for complete details).
Get a persistent link back to the article page on PsycInfo.
Be sure to save the permalink rather than the URL in the address bar. The address bar URL is temporary and specific to your search session. It will not work again! Only the permalink will.
Database Use Tip for Collecting Articles: It is not recommended to open up all the different articles you are interested in using different browser tabs or windows. These can time out and you will lose the article. Instead, use the Tools to collect a list of articles or to copy and paste citations and permalinks into a separate document where you are keeping track of the articles you find.
When you do your searching, you might not come up with a list of all the articles you want to use from just a single search session. That's okay!
Find a few good articles and stop to read them.
Then, use clues from these articles to help you find more, such as: