Last revised: September 9, 2009

PSYC 309B

Scope: This tutorial is intended to support the assignments in PSYC 309B, Abnormal Child Psychology

When using this tutorial, if you have questions or need additional information, please contact Glenn Moreton, the Psychology Librarian.

Table of Contents

• How to Conduct Scholarly Research
• Basic Techniques for Searching the Catalog & the Research Port Databases (Using Boolean Logic)
• Catalog
• Research Port Databases
• How to Use Research Port
• Using Web Sources
• Other Tools

HOW TO CONDUCT SCHOLARLY RESEARCH

To conduct scholarly research, students must pick the best sources of information. In most cases these are scholarly books and journals. In some cases, popular materials such as magazines and newspapers may be used, especially for research that focuses current events. Also Internet Websites sometimes may be used, provided that the information is up-to-date and reliable (note: see Using Web Sources in the latter part of this document).

The University of Maryland Libraries Home Page has two tools* that provide entryways to scholarly research: the Catalog and Research Port. The Catalog is where one looks to locate books (and also other materials, such as government documents, theses, films, etc. ) that the Libraries own. If you need to locate journal articles then click on the Research Port link and use databases. (Note: Be sure to click the "Databases" link rather than the "Journals" link. The reason is that "Databases" allow you to search thousands of journals at once, whereas the "Journals" link limits your search to one journal title at a time.) Most--but not all--of the databases primarily search scholarly (also called "peer-reviewed") journals. If you are not sure whether or not a journal is "scholarly," the following guide may help you decide: Identifying Periodical Types.

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BASIC TECHNIQUES FOR SEARCHING THE CATALOG & THE RESEARCH PORT DATABASES (USING BOOLEAN LOGIC)

The Catalog lists books and other materials that are actually owned by the University of Maryland Libraries. Search here to find books, videos, journals (the titles, not the actual articles), and other material that are part of the Libraries' collection.

Research Port is a gateway to databases and electronic journals to which the Libraries subscribe. Use these databases to search for journal articles (and often to other materials). This is explained in more detail below under "How to Use Research Port."

When searching the Catalog or Databases, you will have most success if you use Boolean logic:

• Boolean uses the words AND, OR, and sometimes NOT, to connect key terms. One should use Boolean rather than randomly searching individual terms, or rather than searching a complete prose phrase or question (e.g. "Find information about developing communication skills of autistic children). Instead, you should identify key terms, the most important words in the search phrase (e.g. "communication skills"; "autistic"; children”), and use these terms with the Boolean connectors (e.g. "communication skills" AND "autistic" AND children”) when conducting the search.
  
  
• AND narrows a search, and OR expands it. So, if the search yields too many results, you can reduce the number of "hits" by adding an additional required term and connecting it to the other terms with the word AND. On the other hand, if a search yields too few results, you can enlarge the number of search results by adding an additional term and connecting it to the other terms with the word OR.

Other ways to expand or narrow searches:

• If you have few hits, or if you want to conduct a thorough search, search keywords and also words that are related to those keywords (including synonyms and other forms of the word). For example in addition to searching on the words, “communication skills” you can also search on the words and phrases: “communication training,” "nonverbal communication, " "verbal communication," "speech," and "social skills" in order to get more hits. As explained previously, be sure to put the word OR in between each of these terms.
  
  
• If you have too many hits after your search, another way to narrow searches is by searching for a given term only if it is used in the title or is used as a subject. The catalog and most databases automatically search for the desired term in all or most of the data in a citation (i.e. the database will search for the word in the title, the author, the subject, the abstract or summary of the article, etc.). In most cases one will see the term “Default Fields” or “All Fields” to indicate that all or most of the fields are being searched. If your search produces too many citations, and many of them appear irrelevant to your topic, you may search for the term only if it is listed in the title or as a subject. To do this, change the search menu item from “Default Fields” or “All Fields” to “Title” or “Subject” options (Note: Some databases use the term “Descriptors” instead of “Subject”).
  

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• Searching for Books:

  Search the Libraries' Catalog for books and documents on your topic. Start with a "word/s anywhere" search.
  
  Example: communication and children and autistic
  
  

  You may wish to use what is called a "truncation symbol" (designated by an asterisk: *). This device merely offers a shortcut that enables you to skip having to type different forms of a word; here is an example: placing asterisk expanded the search (*) after the word “child.” enables you to search any word that has “child” as a stem. Thus in this instance it simultaneously searches for the words “child" OR "children" OR "child's" OR "children's." Similarly, rather than use the words "autism OR autistic," I could achieve the same result merely by typing "autis*". Again, I could have written all of these words--including the "OR" in between each of them--but this is an easier, quicker way to do it. (Note: This feature also is available in most Research Port databases.)

Please note that the Catalog does not recognize phrases unless you put the phrase in quotation marks. So, be sure to enclose phases such as “body image,” “teen suicide," “substance abuse,” etc. in quotation marks. If you do not, the search engine will search for each word separately rather than side by side. Also note that the Catalog will only search for two word phrases—nothing longer. (Note: most Research Port databases do not have these limitations.)

• Searching for Journals:

  You can also use the Catalog to find out whether the Libraries subscribe to print copies of a particular journal. Click on the "Journals" button. Then conduct a "title beginning with" search on the JOURNAL TITLE (not on the ARTICLE TITLE).
  
  Example: Journal of Family Issues

  You cannot use the Catalog to search the contents of journals for actual articles. To search for journal articles, you need to use Research Port Databases such as those that are listed in the next section of this guide/tutorial.

Further information about how to use the Catalog is available in an online Catalog Guide.

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By going to the Libraries' Research Port page, you can get access to the more than 300 bibliographic databases. These databases are indexes that allow users to perform comprehensive searches for journal articles. Such searches will yield either article citations or full-text articles, depending on the respective indexes and articles. In addition to searching journals, most of these indexes also search other types of documents such as conference proceedings, research reports, book and book chapters, and government documents. Often it is a good idea to consult a number of databases.

Key databases that may be useful in your research are:

• PsycARTICLES
  Searchable database of full-text articles from 42 journals published by the American Psychological Association.
  


• PsycINFO
  PsycINFO indexes more than two million items in nearly two thousand journals, technical report series, and selected dissertations. Covering materials from 1872 to the present, PsycINFO is the single most comprehensive file for coverage of all areas of psychology.
  

Other databases that may be useful in your research are:

• Academic Search Premier
  This is a multidisciplinary database that presents articles from 3000 general, humanities, social science, and science periodicals from over 1700 peer-reviewed journals. Many of the articles are available full-text.


• Education Research Complete
  This is a bibliographic and full text database covering scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education. This database would be useful for finding information on those children's psychological issues that can be looked at in a school environment (e.g. bullying, communication skills, etc.)


• Family & Society Studies Worldwide. A primary family science resource, Family & Society Studies Worldwide will take you to articles about the role of the family or how families are impacted by children's psychological issues. This database provides more than 700,000 citations and abstracts to professional journals, books, book chapters, and other materials.


• MasterFile Premier
  Another multidisciplinary database that provides abstracts and indexing for more than 2500 general periodicals, with full-text articles for most of them.


• PubMed
  PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's Medline database that provides abstracts and indexing for about 4,600 biomedical journals.

HOW TO USE RESEARCH PORT

• You can reach the previously listed databases by going to Research Port. If you are off campus, and select “Research Port” from the Libraries’ homepage, you will be asked to input your directory name and password (i.e., the same name and password that you use to open your campus e-mail).

• When you are on the Research Port page, click on the “Databases” link. You may then look at individual databases (by selecting the “by database name” link and clicking either the desired title or the respective magnifying glass icon.). Or you may look at lists of all of the databases assigned to a given topic (by selecting the “by subject category” link).

• For the purposes of this course, it is not recommended that you use the "journals," "My Lists," or "Quick Search" options.

• IMPORTANT TIP: If you find a citation for an article that you need, but the full-text does not appear to be available on-line, the next step is for you to hit the “Find It” button. By doing this you will learn if there are possibly full-text source links that did not appear on the previous screen. If there are no full-text links, the “Find It” screen will tell you if the journal that contains the desired article is listed in the Libraries Catalog. If it is, you may click on the Catalog link that appears on the screen to get the call number of the journal. With this call number you can determine library location where you can physically retrieve the journal (and the desired article).

• If the Libraries do not own a journal or book that you need, Interlibrary Loan can possibly get it for you. This is a free service offered to all patrons who have a current UM ID. The ILL office will search libraries throughout the nation to get books, periodical articles, dissertations, microforms, government documents, and technical reports that you may need. All you need to do is to submit an Interlibrary Loan Online Request Form. ILL usually receives the requested items in about two weeks. A link to this form is also available on the “Find It” screen.

• For the purposes of this course, you will not need to use the “Journals,” the “My Lists,” or the “Quick Search” options.

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USING WEB RESOURCES

Often students think they can get all of the information they need merely by using a search engine such as Google to browse the Internet. Although some useful information may be found this way, this is not the primary route for scholarly research:

• General Internet searches will yield only a very small percentage of the "scholarly" information that is available on a given topic. Scholarly information is controlled by copyright and thus is available primarily through scholarly journals or through databases, such as the Libraries' Research Port databases, that index these journals. So rather than making data available free on the Internet, scholarly information is controlled by publishers and researchers who want to get paid for their efforts. The Libraries pay for costly subscriptions to scholarly journals and to the Research Port database so that UMCP students and faculty can have free access to this scholarly information.
  
  
• Another reason that one should not rely solely on browsing the Net to get scholarly data is that there is no control over the validity of the information. Anyone can create a Web page; consequently, much data in many Web sites contains errors or may be intentionally distorted (e.g. due to a particular political bias). In other instances the information may be very out-of-date.
  
  
• Despite these constraints, researchers often still can get good information by browsing the Internet, but only after carefully evaluating that Web Site and its data. The Libraries have created a guide to Evaluating Web Sites to help students do just that.

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OTHER TOOLS

• Subject Guides
  
  These are research guides that UM Librarians have created on specifics topics and subjects in order to help students find helpful reference books. You may wish to look at some of the reference books in order to help you select a topic for your pamphlet or to give you an overview of the topic that you have selected.

  • Psychology: Brain, Mind, & Behavior
    
  "Development Psychology" is one of the subject areas covered in this study guide. As a result, this guide sites a number of child psychology reference books.
  
  
  • Psychology: Mental Health
    This guide covers the fields of clinical psychology and counseling.
  
  
• The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
  
  This is a style manual for manuscript preparation that is used by scholars both in and outside of the field of psychology. At McKeldin Library, this APA manual is available in the stacks call number: BF76.7.P83 1994) and on the Quick Reference shelves, located across from the service desk in the Service Plus Information and Reference Center.

  Many of the Research Port databases offer a new feature: They will create a bibliographic citation in APA format (and other formats) for the individual article that you select. Here is an example of the EBSCO site that has an icon marked by an arrow in the following example)…
  

  

  
  …that will take you to a page that lists citations for your selected article, e.g.:

  

  Though the manuals are not directly available electronically, one can get much helpful information about them from the following links:

  • "Citing Sources Using the APA Style" page. The Libraries have created this page that explains more about this style manual.
    
    
  • Another useful site is "Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper". Created by Duke University, this site provides quick and easy directions for creating citations for articles and books. This tool shows each citation using each of the popular style guides, including the APA Publication Manual.. Also it gives advice about how to avoid plagiarism.
    
    
  • Another site that may be helpful is the "APA Style Resources" page on Psych Web; it provides links to a number of guides and Web pages that provide writing tips and suggestions for its application.
    
    
  • "Organizing/Citing Tools" page (accessible from the "Reference Shelf" option on the Libraries' home page.

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