PSY 5198: Research Seminar

How do you search for - and get - relevant research results?  Use these methods:

• Use Boolean search terms to narrow or broaden your search.
• Brainstorm keywords and/or use the PsycINFO Thesaurus to find search terms that researchers use.  
• Citation Chasing, forward and backwards...to find relevant results. 

PsycINFO is automatically set up to do Boolean searching...using the terms AND, OR, and NOT to either narrow or broaden your search.

• AND between two keywords will bring back less results    - only those that have both keywords.
• OR between two keywords will bring back more results   - all those articles that have either keywords.
• NOT between two keywords will bring back less results    - only those articles with the first keyword, but not the second keyword.

Putting quotes around a phrase can also help limit the search, but note: if you're not getting many results, try removing the quotes and see if that helps.  PsycINFO's search algorithm is being updated regularly, so...

Thanks to the University of East Angola for the video!

Thanks to the University of Massachusetts in Lowell for the video!