PSY 290

Danielle Carlockd.carlock@sccmail.maricopa.edu

(480) 425-6765

ASSIGNMENT

• Pick a psychology-related topic of interest to you, possibly one you came across while taking Introductory Psychology, another psychology course, or while doing the "topics of interest" exercise during our 1st class. Using the tools you learned during the library inservice, create a search statement and search available databases to find relevant citations. List the reference information for at least 5 citations related to the topic of interest.

FINDING PSYCHOLOGY INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET

• Who can create psychology content on the web?

• Why does this matter?

EVALUATING WEBSITES

CRITERIA DESCRIPTION

AUTHORITYIs the author stated? Does he/she have the necessary education or experience on the subject? Is the page part of an individual's site or part of an organization's site? If an organization, is it reputable? Is contact information available?

ACCURACYIs the site free of obvious errors? Does the author give proper attribution to borrowed information or knowledge?

OBJECTIVITYDoes the author have a bias, taking a position on an issue, or giving only one side of the story? Is the site designed to promote or sell a service or product? What's the purpose of the site? To what audience is the author writing?

CONTENTDoes this website contain the kind of information that I need? Does the site offer something unique that is not found elsewhere? Is the subject well-researched and covered comprehensively? Is the information well organized?

CURRENCYDoes the web page show when it was last updated? Is the information up-to-date? How current are the links?  Have some expired or moved?

HIDDEN VS. OPEN WEB

Open web• Web content that can be found by search

engine spiders• Will be found in an internet search

Hidden web• Web content that cannot be found by search

engine spiders• Will not be found during an internet search

What is contained in the hidden web

• Any content in password protected sites, pay per view material, etc

• Estimates are that 99% of web content is on the hidden web!

• Most scholarly materials are actually in the hidden web

SCHOLARLY SOURCES

• Scholarly journal articles written by psychologists, psychology researchers, etc.

• Often peer reviewed

• Usually only available on the hidden internet

EXAMPE OF A SCHOLARLY PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL ARTICLE

• http://ezproxy.sc.maricopa.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=36079193&site=ehost-live&scope=site

HOW TO FIND JOURNAL ARTICLES

• Use library databases related to psychology:– PsychArticles– Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection– Social Sciences Full Text

HOW TO DO KEYWORD SEARCHES

• When using any type of search engine, do not type whole sentences, questions, etc. into search boxes.

• INSTEAD:

DETERMINE WHAT YOUR ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS ARE

DETERMINING ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS

• Essential concepts – Usually verbs or nouns– They describe your topic

• Example : How can social networking sites help people find jobs?

– ESEENTIAL CONCEPTS: ???????????????

AND

•A command you give to the database

•It is put between the essential concepts in the search•Ex: social networking AND jobs

•It tells the database to only find articles which include each of these terms

EXERCISE 1• You must find 6 articles about finding jobs using

social networking sites.• You look for articles by typing “social networking

and jobs“ into the database.• Unbeknown to you, there are dozens of articles in

the database on this topic just in the last 6 months.

• How many of them would you retrieve by the search you did?

• Look through the articles and create two piles. (1) those that would be retrieved (2) those that would not.

EXERCISE 1

• How many articles would you retrieve?

• Which ones?

• Which ones would not be retrieved?

What’s the Point?

• What is the point of doing this exercise?

BOTTOM LINE

• There are many words in the English language to describe the same/similar concept

• We limited ourselves too much by not

incorporating synonyms into the search

BRAINSTORMING SYNONYMS

• Synonyms/related terms for social networking:

• Synonyms/related terms for job:

OR

• Another command you give to the database

• It is put between synonyms • EX: job or employment• It tells the database to look for

articles in which either of the words appear

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

• Formula for search statement:

• (all synonyms for key concept 1 with OR in between each) AND (all synonyms for key concept 2 with OR in between each)

OUR SEARCH STATEMENT

EXERCISE 2

• Look at the article abstracts and determine how many we would retrieve now with our new search statement.

• How many?

STILL ONE MORE PROBLEM…

• Have you ever done a search using what you thought were the best keywords and still had a problem?

• What was the problem?

EXERCISE 3

• Read over the article abstracts and create two piles: – (1) articles that are relevant to our topic– (2) articles that are not relevant to our topic

EXERCISE 3

• Which articles were relevant to our topic?

• Why did the irrelevant articles come up?

• What can be done about this?– Restrict search terms to article title only– Use subject headings

SUMMARY

• Determine your essential concepts• Brainstorm synonyms for each essential

concept• Create a search statement using AND and OR• Conduct the search!• If too many irrelevant hits, restrict to titles or

use subject headings

NEXT STEPS

Tour of databases:– PsychArticles– Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection– Social Sciences Full Text

– Work on your own to find 5 article citations for the assignment

APA STYLE

• American Psychological Association style

• A way to format papers, including how citations are handled

• See handout