LibGuides: Psychology: How to Search

Research Tips

Writing an essay requires you to answer a research question.

How does _____ contribute to _____? Or, What is the impact of ____ on ____? (What is the impact of poverty on mental health in adulthood? Can frequent social media use make you more narcissistic? Can community programs be used to reduce depression amongst teens?)

How you choose to answer your research question is up to you, but your response to the question should be backed by research that shows evidence to support or oppose the views being expressed.

Take keywords from your research question and formulate a search. Join ideas with AND to create a complete search:

poverty	"mental health"	adult*
"social media" OR Facebook	narc* OR vain OR egot*
"community program" OR "social services"	reduce OR impact OR effective	depression	teen* OR youth

Writing a research essay is similar to telling a fact-based story. Think to yourself:

What do I want to tell my reader? A thesis should tell the purpose of the paper.
You would never build a house without a blue-print, so why would you write an essay without one? Build the scaffolding before filling in the details. Break out topics and sections first so you know where your paper is going, and you know your research needs.
Identify your keywords before searching. Use a thesaurus to come up with synonyms for the same word to expand search results.
Find a good article? Check the citations or reference list and search OCtopus to find the articles used by the author.

Tips:

Use KEYWORDS, avoid phrases that include filler words such as, of, the, it, if, are.
Words that contain multiple concepts require quotation marks to be processed as a PHRASE. For example, "Global Warming", "Child Welfare".
AND, OR, and NOT will improve your search results. These are BOOLEAN search terms used to join more than one search concept.

Perfect Your Search

Too few sources....

You need to expand your search
Look for misspellings or typos in your search
Expand a search term by using synonyms (ie. poverty OR hardship OR welfare OR famine OR impoverish)
Decrease your number of search terms/concepts to broaden your search (ie. Canada AND poverty AND children --> Canada AND poverty)
Try broader or more general search terms (ie. welfare --> poverty)
Try truncating search terms to find alternate endings (ie. Canad* = Canadian, Canada, Canadians, etc.)
Use the database's thesaurus or index to find the exact subject heading
Use the database's 'related articles' feature
Try other databases
Turn OFF the "available in OC collection" limiter in OCtopus

Too many sources...

You need to narrow your search
Add additional concepts/search terms to your search
Choose subject headings as your search type
Search for significant words in the TITLE of the article
Select specific article or resource types
Limit your search by language, age group or demographic, geographic area, current years, etc.

Limiters / Filters	Use the limiters on the sidebar of results pages Example: Date, language, resource type, etc.
"Quotation Marks"	Phrase searching: Add " " around words to search an exact phrase. Works in databases and Google!
Field Searching	Search for terms in a specific field, such as title, author, or subject Example: "Global hunger"[ti]
Subject Headings	Construct a search using only subject headings, or a combination of SH and keywords.
Scan Results	Use subject headings, keywords, and phrases found in existing results.
Research the Author	Find an interesting author? Search for more articles or look for their web site
Agency or Association?	Notice an agency, association or expert mentioned in an article? Follow up.
Reuse References/Citations	Find a relevant source? Examine the bibliography, reference list, citations and footnotes for sources used by the author. Use OCtopus or the e-journal finder to find the same articles.

Find a relevant source and the use citations to locate more related sources. Examine the bibliography, reference list and footnotes for sources used by the author. Use OCtopus or the e-journal finder to find your articles.

When searching in the databases for articles the following tips may help you.

* - This is the truncation symbol, it searches for variations of your term. For example: run* will return: run, running, runner, runners

AND - Use the word AND when you want to combine search terms (this will reduce the number of items found). For example: physical fitness AND students will find articles that discuss physical fitness and students.

OR - Use the word OR when you are searching for a topic that may have different names (this will expand the number of items found).For example: physical fitness OR exercise OR physical education will find articles with any of these words.

NOT - Use the word NOT when you want to exclude certain terms from your results. For example: qualitative NOT mixed methods will find articles that talk about qualitative research but exclude any that are mixed methods.

Truncate words to increase your search results

Truncation is used to find variations of a word ending. Truncating a word will usually EXPAND your search

Example: Remove the ending of the word children, replace with * (or ? in library catalogue), child*

Searches for child, children, childish, child's, etc.

Wildcards increase your search results

Wildcards allow you to find variations within a word.

Example: Organi?ation will find organization and organisation (or % in the library catalogue)

NOTE: Different databases use different symbols! Check the Help area to learn the symbols for that database.

Proximity decreases your search results

Proximity operators allow you to locate one word within a certain distance of another.

Example: Canada w3 economy. Searches for results in which the word Canada appears within 3 words of economy