Home - PSYC 269 - Experimental Psychology - Research Guides at Wheaton College

Pre-Library Session Assignment

Take this tutorial to explore searching techniques for your class assignment.

Guide on the Side tutorial for PSYC 269

Databases

Academic Search Complete
A scholarly, multidisciplinary database providing indexing, abstracts, and full-text for thousands of publications, including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and others. Offers coverage of many areas of academic study including: archaeology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, physics, psychology, religion & theology, women's studies, and other fields.
APA PsycBOOKS
Provides the full text of all books published by the American Psychological Association (APA) which includes, among other titles, the APA Handbooks in Psychology and the APA/Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Psychology.
APA PsycInfo
Provides citations of journal articles and other resources in psychology, and the psychological aspects of other disciplines.
MEDLINE (via Web of Science)
Provides citations of journal articles and other resources in medicine and related disciplines.
PubMed Central
Provides the full text of journal articles from a selected set of journals in the discipline of medicine and health.
SocINDEX with Full Text
Provides comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study. These include abortion, criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.
Web of Science (All Databases)
The Web of Science provides access to all databases listed below:
- Web of Science Core Collection (Includes: Arts & Humanities Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index (1955-present), and Social Science Index (1996-present)
- BIOSIS Previews (1955-present)
- KCI - Korean Journal Database (1980-present)
- MEDLINE (1950-present)
- Russian Science Citation Index (2005-present)
- SciELO Citation Index (2002-present)
For more help on searching in Web of Science, view the Web of Science Search Tips Video

Tips for Effective Searching

Using APA PsycInfo Thesaurus

The APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms is available in the APA PsycInfo database. Using a thesaurus allows you to create more precise searches and helps ensure that the results are on your topic not just contain key words. It also helps you search using the language of the discipline.

Citation Mining

Citation mining or searching is important because it allows you to trace research on a topic over time. It allows you to enter into the "scholarly conversation" about a topic. In the sciences and social sciences, science builds on the science of others.

Use the references in the back of an article to look at research that informs the research of an article in-hand.
Use a citation database such as the Web of Science or the "cited by" link in Google Scholar to find research that was informed by the research of an article in-hand.

In Web of Science:

use the times cited to trace research forward. Who has used this research to build their own research?
look at the cited references to trace research backwards. What research did this researcher think was important?
select related records to find related research based on shared citations. Who is doing similar research?