Psychology 

MAJOR DATABASES FOR PSYCHOLOGY

 PsycINFO -  indexes 2,100 psychology journals, 1887-present, with full-text for some.

•     How to Use PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES

 PsycARTICLES - indexes 60+ peer-reviewed psychology journals, 1895-present, all full-text.

•         How to Use PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES

Psychology and Behavorial Sciences Collection - indexes 575 full-text publications, including 550 peer-reviewed journals, some as far back as the 1930's to the present.

Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) - [also known collectively as Web of Science or Web of Knowledge] - each indexes thousands of science and social sciences journals, with full-text for some.

•         How to Use Social Sciences Citation Index

Annual Reviews Online - an excellent starting point! Review articles cover the major literature on a topic, so you can find the seminal works and build on those. Although the Annual Review of Psychology, for example, is indexed in PsycINFO, using Annual Reviews Online can be a faster way to locate review articles.   1930-present; full-text.

Animal Behavior Abstracts - major research papers about animal behavior.  1982-present.

PsychiatryOnline - the full-text of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the DSM Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, the DSM Cases, several psychiatry textbooks and journals.

ADDITIONAL DATABASES FOR PSYCHOLOGY

• Academic Search Complete - interdisciplinary database; indexes some psychology journals
• CINAHL - indexes nursing and health journals
• ERIC - indexes education journals
• Health Source - Consumer Edition - indexes 80 consumer health magazines plus many pamphlets
• Health Source - Nursing/Academic Edition - indexes about 1,400 medical journals, most with a nursing and allied health focus
• Medline - indexes 9,500 medical journals and other materials
• Mental Measurements Yearbook - summaries, evaluations, and reviews of tests
• PILOTS (Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress) - indexes journals, books, and other sources related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related consitions

• PubMed - indexes 9,500 medical journals and other materials; the "public" version of Medline but also indexes additional sources
• ScienceDirect - indexes some psychology journals
• Sociological Abstracts - indexes 1,950 social sciences journals, 1952-present, with full-text for some.
• Wiley InterScience - indexes some psychology journals and books (we have access only to the journals)

When searching for empirical studies:

1.  Some databases, such as PsycINFO, usually in the advanced search options, will have ways to limit your search by METHODOLOGY.  In PsycINFO, for example, you can limit the METHODOLOGY to EMPIRICAL STUDY.

2.  In other databases, use keywords such as:  

methodology  

subjects  

data   

results  

findings  

discussion   

empirical

....along with your subject terms.   For example:

     phobias AND (subjects OR results OR methodology OR empirical)

3.  For other types of methodologies, use the appropriate limit (for example, "clinical" or "qualitative") or these types of terms as keywords in your search strategy.

4.  As always, please ask the Reference librarians for assistance!

Your professor has recommended that you use peer-reviewed (also called "refereed") journal articles for your research paper.  What are peer-reviewed journal articles?