Psychology
A R e s e a r c h G u i d e
This guide will help you start your research on
psychology-related topics for your research paper or presentation.
I Reference Books I Searching the Library Catalog I Searching Electronic Resources I
I Print Periodicals I Searching the Internet I Recommended Web Sites I
I Web Evaluation I Citing Your Sources I
Reference Books
Reference books are a good place to start your research. The following list of books will help you narrow down your topic, find additional search terms, and get a general overview of your topic before you begin your research. This is not an exhaustive list, so be sure to look at the books shelved near these titles for additional books.
- Popular Psychology: An Encyclopedia – REF BF31.C715
- Encyclopedia of Psychology – REF BF31.E32
- Dictionary of Psychology – REF BF31.C65
- Theories of Psychology: A Handbook – REF BF81.C43
- Biographical Dictionary of Psychology – REF BF109.A1
- The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Psychology – REF HM251.B476
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Searching the Library Catalog
Once you have narrowed down your topic, search the library catalog for additional resources on your specific topic. Here are some search tips and strategies:
- In the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC), Psychology fills the entire BF section. This is a rather large area, so you will need to narrow your search with additional search terms in the advanced search screen
- If you do a subject search for psychology you will see 130 entries. Try scrolling down the indexed list of subject headings to find more specific headings and click on those titles first.
- Other subject headings to search:
Social psychology
Behaviorism (Psychology)
Psychoanalysis
Humanistic Psychology
Psychotherapy
- Using the advanced search screen, Search for: psycholog? Search in “Subject.” then build your search by entering another search term connected with AND to produce more specific results. Examples: sports, development?, art, advertis?, abnormal, or symbol?
Note: The ? symbol placed at the end of the term is a truncation symbol that tells the computer to search for all words that start with the first part of the letters included. For example, symbol? will search for symbol, symbols, symbolism, etc.
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Searching Electronic Resources for Articles and eBooks
You will find magazine, journal, and newspaper articles; essays; and full-text ebooks on history topics in most of the databases at OCC Library. This is a list of the most pertinent sources. Go to the library’s Web page and click on the link “Electronic Resources” to get the full list of databases at OCC Library.
PsychINFO – Psychological scholarly literature abstracts. To access full-text articles, check with the OCC Periodicals List in the library to see if OCC Library carries the journal in print or microform for the specific date of the article.
Health Reference Center Academic – Health, wellness, and medical magazine and scholarly journal articles. Can limit search to scholarly journals. Most articles are available in full-text.
Health and Wellness Resource Center – Health, wellness, and medical reference books, periodical articles, and Web links.
Lexis-Nexis Academic – Magazines, journals, and newspapers from legal, business, medical, and government sources. Most articles are available in full-text.
eBooks - NetLibrary provides electronic full-text copies of over 3,000 published print materials.
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Print Periodicals at OCC Library
The following periodicals are found in the Periodicals section of the library and are filed in alphabetical order by title.
- Abnormal Psychology – REF H31.A66 A36x
- Adolescent Psychology – REF H31.A66 A365x
- American Journal of Psychology (current + 10 yrs) indexed in Infotrac and Psychological Abstracts
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology (current + 5 yrs) indexed in Infotrac Expanded Academic
- Journal of Applied Psychology (2/96-1/05) indexed in Infotrac and Psychological Abstracts
- Journal of Marriage and the Family (current + 10 yrs) indexed in Infotrac, Psychological Abstracts & Book Review Digest
- Journal of Personality & Social Psychology (1/74-12/84) indexed in Infotrac & Psychological Abstracts
- Journal of Social Issues
- Psychological Abstracts (in reference collection – REF/A/10/.P88x – current + 5 yrs)
- Psychological Bulletin (3/00-2/04) indexed in Infotrac
- Psychology Today (1/93-2/04) indexed in Infotrac, Reader’s Guide to Periodicals Literature and others
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Searching the Internet for Web Sites
The following Web sites will help you find reliable Internet resources that are of good authority for your research paper or presentation.
Librarians’ Index to the Internet - This site was developed by librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to Internet resources. The Index is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 14,000 Internet resources that have been selected and evaluated by librarians.
Infomine: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections – Developed by librarians, this is a virtual library of Internet resources for students, faculty, and researchers.
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Recommended Web Sites
AmoebaWeb: Psychology on the Web! – Maintained by Douglas Degelman, Ph.D. from Vanguard University, this site provides links to articles and other resources on various branches of psychology.
PsychCentral: Learn. Share. Grow. – A mental health social network created and run by mental health professionals. Site features resources, disorders, quizzes, ask the therapist, drugs, a blog, news, research, books, chats, and a community discussion board.
Psych Crawler – An index of online content on psychology from the American Psychological Association.
Psychological Tutorials and Demonstrations – From Hanover College’s Psychology Department, the site provides links to many different tutorials on different aspects of psychology from sensation & perception to social psychology.
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Web Evaluation
Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages - A quick and useful guide to help you evaluate the Web pages you find for accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. From Jim Kapoun’s article "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction” originally published in the July/August 1998 issue of C&RL News on pages 522-523.
Citing Your Sources
Citation Styles – A guide to citing Internet sources using the MLA, APA, and other formats. From Bedford/St. Martin’s site Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.
Guides to Cite It! – Provides style guides for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and others. From the University of Georgia Libraries.
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(jk 5/07)