Covers planning your search, useful tips, and takes you through searching PsycInfo, Social Sciences Citation Index, and personalising Google Scholar. Also looks at Zetoc alerts for staying up to date in your research area.
2. Aims & Outcomes
Planning your searching
Introduction to searching different databases
Psycinfo
Web of Knowledge
Google Scholar
How to set up alerts on your interest/research areas
Zetoc
Evaluating what you find
Where to find referencing information
2
3. Housekeeping
How’s it going?
Can you find the books on your
reading list?
Can you renew books?
Can you reserve books?
Do you know who to contact for help?
Library Subject Guides?
3
5. Planning your search - keywords
Boring but WORTH IT!
1. Pick out your concepts and separate them
drugs, addiction, therapy, offenders, etc
2. Think of other words that are similar to your key
words but represent the same concepts
Illegal drugs, Counselling, criminals,
programmes (programs)
3. Think of narrower words that fit into your terms
to hone your search if you’re getting too much
information
5
6. Keywords
Really worth a 5 minute brainstorm before you search
- will save you time later - I promise!
Searching one word for your concept will not bring
you all the results! And sometimes none!
Not everyone uses the same terminology for one idea
Can use the library worksheet if you like (also helps
you organise how to combine the terms with ‘AND’ or
‘OR’)
6
Examples follow
7. • Criminal* •“Youth offenders”
• Offender* •“Repeat offenders”
• Convict* •“First time offenders”
crime • “Criminal population”
•“Violent offenders”
• Inmate*
• “Criminal justice system” HMP
• Opiates
• “Psychotropic
What research has • “Substance abuse”drugs”
been conducted on • “Illicit drugs” •“Prescription
the use of therapy Drug drugs”
• “Illegal drugs” • Specific drug
for offenders who addiction • “addictive names ... Prozac,
take drugs?
substances” cannabis, crack
cocaine, heroin etc
• “Talk therapy”
• Treatment* • “Behavioural therapy” OR
• Programme* CBT OR “Behavioral
therapy OR Program* therapy”
• Medicat*
• Counsel* • “Family Therapy”
• “residential therapy” OR
rehab*
9. Useful clues/things to pick up on
Literature searching is a cycle – you will often need to improve your
search / play around with a few different searches
Search strategies
Citation – you follow leads from useful articles, books and reading
lists
Expanding your keyword base as you go along – keep an eye out
for alternative keywords in your search results – so you can rerun
your searches and perhaps find things you missed
Start big – BUT you may have to get smaller and more specific if you
don’t want to look through hundreds of results!
Limiting the search strategy – a way to answer a very broad/general
question
e.g. randomized trials; publication date; empirical study; English
language; type of drug; type of offender (race/age/crime)
9
10. Get better results & find things quicker
Watch out for spellings US/UK =
behavior / behaviour
Counselor / counselling
Truncate your term* =
Offend* = will find offending, offender, offenders
Counsel* = will find counselling, counsellor,
counsellors
Keep phrases together with speech marks
“substance abuse”
10
12. General principles of searching
Volunteer please!
12 http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/elearning/learn/topic/gamenesting/index.php
13. PsycInfo
Specific psychology database - subject specific information
unlike other databases like Summon (searches all subjects)
or Web of Knowledge (search broadly across sciences or
social sciences)
Articles are tagged with psychology subject headings when
indexed – useful for searching
Not completely full text but can limit results to full text
Run by APA
Worth noting US bias – if being comprehensive in search
would have to take this into account and use other
resources as well
13
14. Getting into the databases....
REMEMBER!
Always use MyUniHub
as a gateway to library
resources
14
18. • Select Psycinfo
• You can select PsycARTICLES Full Text but you will get far fewer results – to start it’s
best to search PsycInfo and then limit within that to full text if you get enough results
18
19. • ALWAYS use Advanced Search – this allows you to combine your different concepts
with ‘AND’ or ‘OR’
• And leave ‘Map subject term heading’ ticked – this gives you a useful way of
accessing records tagged as being in a subject area and also finding the most common
‘official’ term used for your topic in journal articles
19
20. • Choose any suitable subject headings
• Narrow your scope IF it’s useful
• Or keep your words as a free keyword search as you
entered them
20
21. • Enter all your synonyms for the first concept – ONE BY ONE
• If you have them one separate lines you can combine them
• And also take out things you think aren't working without
messing up your search
21
22. • You now need to combine your synonyms with ‘OR’ to get everything under
one topic referred to by different names
22
23. First concept
Second concept
Third concept
• Now you have three results on your list which represent each concept with a
variety of words
6, 9 and 13
• You need to combine these to find results on your question - what do we
23 combine these with?
24. Results!
You need to have a look and evaluate how relevant the
results on the first few pages are
You're using an academic journal database so you don't
need to worry too much about authority but you do need
to think about
Currency Relevance Objectivity
Now you have results you can limit to full text or limit to a
time frame on the left hand side menu
24
25. Exercise 1 – PsycInfo
Try and do a similar search to find information on
offenders AND DSPD AND treatment
Synonyms and narrower terms on next slide
Use the worksheet if it helps you organise concepts and how to
combine with ‘AND’ and ‘OR’
REMEMBER to select any relevant subject headings
REMEMBER alternative UK/US spellings!
Grab me for help!
If you get to grips with that quickly – try combining narrower terms to
find information on a specific aspect of the research area
25
27. Social Sciences Citation Index
Social Sciences
Will take you to the Web of Knowledge platform
On here you can also select Sciences Citation Index if
you want to search across both
27
28. Social Sciences Citation Index
Slightly different search screen
Example search
Works in a similar way but you should group your concept
terms in each box and type ‘OR’ between them (most
28 straightforward way)
29. Exercise 2 - SSCI
Have a go – the principle is the same – it’s just the
way you input that looks slightly different
We are going to try and find information to answer
an essay question
“Examine the balance between rights, duties,
responsibilities to the public, the offender and the
practitioner themselves in discussion of treatment
for incarcerated sex offenders.”
3 concepts =
sex offenders AND prison AND treatment
29
30. Exercise 2 - Tips!
Now run a few searches and see if you can find 1 thing
for an element of the question (no need to record
this)
Use the worksheet if it helps you organise concepts
and how to combine with ‘AND’ and ‘OR’
Make sure the drop down boxes on the left say ‘AND’
so the three concepts combine to find things about :
sex offenders AND prison AND treatment
REMEMBER alternative UK/US spellings!
Grab me for help!
30
31. Exercise 2 – EXTENSION TASK
In our previous search we were treating each concept
equally – however this question asks you to delve
deeper into one – which one?
This means you will repeat your search several times
changing the third element – to look in turn at
treatment, public safety issues, practitioner safety,
and offender rights.
This is quicker than combining them all with OR and
looking through 60,000 results – doing 4 or 5 quick
searches and picking 1 or 2 results from each will help
you answer your question quicker.
31
32. The last element is the one we will
change for each mini-search to
answer the whole question
You will need to do a few searches swapping the last element out each
time so you cover:
treatment (example: treatment OR therapy OR programme* OR program*)
public safety issues,
practitioner safety,
32 and offender rights.
33. Follow the trail - citations
In the record look for (right hand side)
33
34. Google Scholar
Important – did you know you can set Google Scholar
to flag up everything you have paid access to through
the University?
Please follow along and personalise your GS
Google Scholar > settings
34
35. Personalising Google Scholar ...
• Click library links on the left
hand side
• Search ‘Middlesex
university’ and select
‘Middlesex University – Full
Text @ Middlesex’
35
36. Searching Google Scholar ...
• Search ‘crime drug addiction treatment’
• Is there anything you notice about the results?
36
37. Searching Google Scholar ...
One result is a citation – there’s no file but it looks
very relevant and I want to know a bit more
Click on ‘Cite’ and copy and paste the full citation into
Google The top three results are
from the organisational
website .org – should be
authoritative
I can download the file,
and the follow up report
Several useful sections on
treatment
37
39. Evaluating what you’ve found
Key questions
Is it what you need and is it trustworthy?
What criteria would you use to assess the
relevance and quality of the information?
40. Currency How old is this information? When was it
last updated? Is this important for the assignment?
Authority Who is the author? Site creator,
organisation, scholarly / peer reviewed journals etc?
Intent What is the purpose of the website /
information? e.g. financial gain, academic
Relevance Is this what I need? Will it answer my
question? Is it at the right level?
Objectivity Balanced view? Opposing views
represented? References?
42. Staying up to date in your area
In the databases we’ve looked at you can set up an
account and then set up alerts or RSS feeds for
searches you’ve done
42
43. Staying up to date – citation alerts
• In Web of Science databases (SSCI and SCI)
• For articles particularly significant to your work/dissertation
get an alert every time it is cited in new research
44. Zetoc alerts service – get info as it’s published
44 • Access as you would any of the other databases (MyUnihub)
46. • Now add searches or journals to the alert
46
47. • You can build a list of searches – by keywords or author
• You can also add searches by journals and be emailed every
47 time a journal is released
48. Excercise 3 - Zetoc
Set up some alerts and add searches relevant to your
log books for this module
Remember you can add multiple searches for each of
the synonyms for your search term to your alert
Grab me if you need a hand or help picking search
terms.
48
49. Getting Full text of journal articles
If you’re lucky!
It will be available as a PDF on the database (look for PDF
symbol)
If you’re not lucky! REMEMBER – it won’t always be directly
available to you – especially at MA level
Double check the library catalogue by copying journal name
into the ‘journal search’. If we have it there’ll be a record and
a link with the dates we have access to.
Go to Google Scholar and look for PDF signs
Go to Author’s website/institution’s repository, often they
have left a pre publisher version
Order a copy via the inter-library loan service (£3.00) (usually
you’ll be emailed with a link to a PDF)
http://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/study/library/resources/ill/index.aspx
49
50. Using other libraries
SCONUL – go to UniHelp with your ID and fill out a
form to get a SCONUL card
http://www.cpd25.ac.uk/ - go to ‘search catalogues’
and search to see if the item is available in another
University library
(You will always need to double check the relevant
University’s own library catalogue to check if they
have print copies- the only University where you will
be able to use their electronic collections is UL Senate
House library)
50
52. Referencing
Is very important
Acknowledges other people’s work (avoids plagiarism)
Shows you’ve read around the subject
Supports your discussion and arguments
Gets you better marks!
Enables others to find your references
As MA students it would be useful to use a referencing
software like RefWorks or Mendeley
53. Referencing tools
Refworks is an online
site to manage your
references subscribed to
by the University – you
access it like any other
database through
logging into MyUniHub
> My Study > scroll
down to ‘My library’ >
databases
Mendeley is a free to use Open access website to
which you can sign up and store and organise all your
53 references http://www.mendeley.com/
55. Library subject guide
This and other powerpoints and helpsheets
My contact details – please make appointments with me!
55 Access via MyUniHub > My study > My library > library subject guides
56. Need help?
Librarians in the Specialist Zone (1st floor)
11-3 Monday - Friday
Ask a Librarian http://askalibrarian.mdx.ac.uk/
Psychology Library Subject Guide - Viv’s contact
details and power points/helpsheets
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/psy
Notes de l'éditeur
planning your search – keywords and conceptsDifferent kinds of resource - Google Scholar and Zetoc are good general resources that search across ALL subject areas. WOK & Psychinfo are specific to subject areas – social sciences and psycinfo specifically and so you should get better, more relevant results
Remind them that Google will always clarify a citation
Will save time – don't need to write an essay, don't need to necessarily write anything down if you don't want but you should always think about these things or you’ll log onto a database and waste time.
Breaking down concepts, similar terms, narrower terms. The narrower terms come in useful if you are inundated with results. What are my 3 concepts? Where are the synonyms? Where are narrower terms?
Slightly harder – notice some things don't have that many alternatives – if a disorder has one specific name you may not be able to expand it. Different way of displaying – work however suits you. And we have the sheets you can work from – today is all about frameworks. You will have to adapt as all databases slightly different but principles the same.
Example - point 2 expanding keyword search – official term postnatal depression – upon searching for the first years discovered many article titles and abstracts instead mentioned ‘maternal depression’ – picking up on this allowed us to expand our search. NOTE you can often build an answer to a very general question like this (pick a few select aspects which cover the scope of the large topic you are addressing and this will make your life easier)For e.g. Effect on child development of postnatal depression - Could look at 1 article from a few key age groups and answer your question that way.
These either stop you from missing things out (diff spellings & truncation) or make your results more specific and relevant (speech marks)
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/elearning/learn/topic/gamenesting/index.phpAll databases work in the same way but the interface will be slightly different – how much do you already know about searching? Please don’t hit me if you already know all this! Some don’t
Mention again logging intoUniHub
Enter each synonym for your first concept (Crime) - You will be asked to select a subject heading – if they are useful select some – but don’t go overboard or get too general as you’ll get too many results (if interested in ‘behavioural therapy’ don’t select just ‘behaviour’ = too broad) If there’s not a suitable heading or you don't like the ones the database suggests you can just free search your keyword as you entered it If I want to focus I could select violent crime or serial crime – but I'll start off general see what we get and then we can narrow down our focus if we want
Search one by one on each line:Criminal*Crime (select subject heading ‘crime’) – ASK THEM why would I not truncate crim* but search Crime* and criminal* = this is an example where the shortened version would pick up too many irrelevant resultsOffender* (also select offered subject heading ‘criminals’)Convict*Inmate* (also select offered subject heading ‘prisoners’)
Explain you have each term listed separately and you need to select them and combine with ‘OR’ to use the words/synonyms interchangeably Your combined words for your first concept are now listed at number 6 I’ll now do the same for the other two concepts
Search:Drug* (select as keyword and also select subject headings ‘drug abuse’ and ‘drug addiction’ “substance abuse” (have already selected drug abuse heading)And combine Then search:Therap* (could select more specific therapy from list if you want – ie ; conginitive behavioural therapy) Program* - will pick up UK/Us spellings Counsel* - will pick up both spellings (also select subject headings ‘counseling’)And combine
Show/Mention additional limits like age group in the additional limits section but this may be overwhelming so don't confuse yourself – the most useful option on that big screen is ‘age group’ and ‘methodology’
If it helps you can work in pairs. Doesn’t have to be exhaustive just play with grouping your synonyms for each concept and combining them.
Ask them to break down the concepts1st two simple (sex offender) (prison) but last one asks us to look at many aspects (treatment)Your spider diagram for this would be a little bigger!
Show them the first one and then
Only on WOS
Google Scholar is a good quick cross search which searches across all subject areas but it does have it’s limitations. search across ALL subject areas. Google Scholar – don’t know what it’s searching.
What is available through Middlesex is highlighted on the right Many results are quite old – this may / may not be important depending on your topic Mostly journal articles but you still need to look at the source
Copy the citation ‘Columbia University. National Center on Addiction, and Substance Abuse. Behind bars: Substance abuse and America's prison population. National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 1998’ and show them the file and that it has a relevant sections on treatment. But if you were going to use one of these reports which would you use? > latest! 1998 vs. 2010.
Get them to give you ideas:CurrentAuthoritativeObjective – balanced, unbiased – what’s their intent? EtcRelevant – who is it aimed at? Level, Context e.g. UK/US
Photo credit: www.pickywallpapers.com
Regularly updated – most up to date alerts – journals are indexed here by BL quicker than other databases.
Quick run through on where to find referencing info
Tell them to start playing around with resources and get used to using and how they each work – when they have questions or a specific project they need help researching on databases contact me in groups or individuallyMention that they can make appointments through LibGuide