Psychology: Finding Articles for Your Assignments

Here are some suggestions to help you put together a smart, detailed search. These strategies will work for library databases or online tools like PubMed.

There are two steps to finding high quality psychology articles:

• Identifying specific search terms
• Using Advanced Search and/or filters

First, think about your search terms. For example, you were asked to research a treatment or intervention for a specific diagnosis. For example, you may be looking for research on the treatment for anxiety disorders. You can try searching for treatment for anxiety disorders, but this will bring back an overwhelming number of results. Instead focus on a specific intervention (anti-anxiety medication or cognitive behavioral therapy) for the diagnosis.

If possible, try to put together a search that includes both of the following

• A patient/population or a diagnosis AND
• The treatment or intervention for that patient/population or problem

This strategy will help you narrow down your search results.

The other sections on this page show you how to use search tools to narrow down your results.

You can find psychology articles on PubMed! PubMed is an online resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, connecting you with eBooks and articles from scholarly journals. Not all articles found on PubMed are free, but in the screenshot below we will show you how to limit your search results on PubMed to free articles. 

If you find something on PubMed that is not free, try searching by the title of the article in the library databases. Since IW purchases access to articles for you, we may have the article. If it's not available at IW, the library may be able to get a copy for you from another library using Interlibrary Loan.

To filter your search results on PubMed check Free full text. The one that just says full text will link you to articles, but will include articles require that you purchase the article to read it. 

These filters also let you limit your results to articles that are published within the last 5 or 10 years. It will also allow you to limit your search results to certain types of studies.

If the library does not have an article you are looking for, we may be able to get a copy for you from another library!

Interlibrary loan is available for most academic articles. If you ask the library to get a copy of an article for you, it can take anywhere from less than a day to multiple days to receive the article. Interlibrary loan requests are typically processed Monday - Friday 7:30 am to 4:00 pm.

The library provides access to several research databases that you can use to find articles for your assignments. If you have questions about using the library databases, please ask! Use one of the options in the Ask the Library box on this page.

Click here to access the library databases

Here are some basic tips for finding articles in the library databases:

• Select Full Text.
  • This limits your search results to articles IW pays for. If you don't select Full Text, your search results will include articles that we don't have.
• If you are required to use a scholarly/academic/peer reviewed article then select Peer Reviewed.
• If you are required to use an article that is less than 5 or 10 years old, you can select the number of years in the drop down. In our example below, we selected Past 5 years to see articles published within the past 5 years.

Use a subject search to help narrow down your search results!

Look for the Advanced Search link under the search box. You will find this on the main search page and on your results page. 

With Advanced Search you now have multiple search boxes. This can help you break up your search, especially if you're using the search strategy at the top of this page. 

You can also choose to do a Subject Search. In the drop down next to your search terms, you can change the setting from All Fields to Subject Terms. See the screenshot below. This tells the database that you would like articles where your search term is the main subject or main focus. It will help eliminate articles that only briefly discuss your topic.

When you access our EBSCO databases, you may be asked if you would like to log in (Continue personalized). If you select continue you will be logged in to EBSCO, which will allow you to save articles, organize articles into folders and save your search history. If you choose skip this, you can still use the databases, you just can't use the personalized tools. 

Looking for reliable and up to date statistics on health, mental health, and substance use topics? Try some of these sites.

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