PSY 2000 - Research Design & Analysis I (Ficco)

• Create search term list – record synonyms and any related terms as you learn them 
• Search in more than one place - Different search tools have access to different groupings of sources
  • Google and Google Scholar search the open web, which is expansive but a lot of stuff may not be accessible
  • The Library Search (Library website homepage), does an expansive/wide search of Library resources but is not always very deep and can miss things
  • Different databases have access to different collections of information, even databases that cover the same disciplines. They may have some overlap but they will also have access to different sources. 
• Use filters (usually along the left side) to narrow search results - such as date, source type, language, etc.
• Try to avoid phrases as much as possible - keep search terms simple
• Use quotation marks (“”) to group words together
  • Ex: “child development” “bipolar disorder” “short-term memory”
• Expand your search with a wildcard - use the asterisk (*) to search for variations of a word
  • Ex: psych* → .psychology, psychological, psychosis, psychoanalysis, psychiatric, etc.

Skip the single search box and use advanced searching with multiple search boxes:

• In each search box = individual concept

• Different concepts linked by AND → narrow results
• Like terms/synonyms linked by OR → more results

Every article found represents 3 possible uses:

1. Use the information found in the article itself
2. Cited Sources - Mine the citations in the article for potential new sources
3. Times Cited - Use Google Scholar to see articles that have cited this article