Finding Literature on Your Theory
For this assignment, you will also have to find research that supports or criticizes your theory. You can find these scholarly sources through our library databases. Below is a list of databases that the library subscribes to that has psychology resources in them.
Searching tips:
- Use the most important words when you do a search, otherwise known as keywords. For you, you would use your theory name.
- Let's say you are doing your paper on attachment theory. If you typed in attachment theory into a database, it would find any article that has attachment somewhere in it and theory. If you want to search it as a phrase, so only articles that have attachment theory together, put quotations around it before you search "attachment theory"
- Think about if there is another way scholars refer to your theory. Is there another name that is used? Make sure you search for both of them to find all of the articles possible.
- While you do have to find out if there is any criticism of your paper, it usually isn't help to use criticism or detractor in your search. Even if an article criticizes a theory, they usually won't use criticism as a key subject in their paper.
- Some tips to find criticism:
- Read the literature review in the essays you find, sometimes they will refer to work that criticizes the theory. If they do, you can read the article through one of our databases, or if we don't have it, get it through Interlibrary Loan.
- Read article abstracts. You should be able to tell whether the author is critiquing or supporting the theory just by reading the abstract.
- Some tips to find criticism:
Finding Scholarly Articles
The easiest way to find scholarly articles on most topics is to search in OneSearch. OneSearch searches nearly half of our databases at one time. You can also search in specific databases. OneSearch is effective for preliminary searches, but is limited when looking for specified research. The databases found below can be used to search more specifically within the field of psychology.
OneSearch
- APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Provides access to international literature in psychology, the behavioral sciences, and related disciplines from professional journals, book chapters, books, reports, and dissertations. Most citations include abstracts.Also included are millions of cited references in journal articles, books, and chapters. EBSCO
- APA PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 25,000 searchable full text articles from 49 journals published by the American Psychological Association and allied organizations. Coverage spans from 1988 to the present. EBSCO
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Searchable, browsable database of journals published by Elsevier Publishers. Subscription includes full-text access to about 1,200 journals in the health and life sciences, and the social sciences - including business, managements, economics, accounting, finance, and psychology. Abstracts, tables of contents and some complimentary full-text may be available in other subject areas. Elsevier
- Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive database with 470 full text titles covering topics such as emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods. EBSCO
- MEDLINE Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE allows users to search abstracts from over 4,000 current biomedical journals. MEDLINE Complete provides full text coverage for over 2,500 journals with more than 1,400 not found in other EBSCO full text databases. EBSCO
- ERIC This link opens in a new window
Index of journal literature in education, as well as education-related material such as books, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, curriculum materials, and theses. Links to available full-text. EBSCO
- Academic Search Complete
Provides full text for nearly 5,318 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, biological & ecological sciences, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. EBSCO
- MasterFILE Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 2,000 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1922. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, it also contains full text for more than 1,000 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags. EBSCO
- Family Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides records covering topics like marriage, divorce and family therapy, Scholars within this field are treated to a wide array of unique content, as well as highly regarded works made popular in the realm of family studies. EBSCO