Step 1:
Get Started.
You can start searching by using the search box on the Library Homepage. http://www.gavilan.edu/library
Step 2:
Enter your research terms.
The most challenging part of looking for an article is picking the correct search term(s). Our best advice is to look at your text book and class notes for topics that interest you. Since you are being asked to read an article at least 10 pages long, it may as well interest you!
I chose Sleep Disorders. I want to add the psychology in order to limit my results to articles that are about the psychological aspects of sleep disorders.
This search will probably return a lot of results that are not about your topic specifically. You can narrow your search if the psychological condition you are researching has a specific name or term. You will not find scholarly/academic psychology resources that use common terms. We can force the database to only show us articles that have that phrase by putting it in quotes. Let's try that now:
Note that ONLY the key search terms are used; your search will be more effective this way than typing in a question or statement.
When you have entered your search terms click on Search
Step 3:
Evaluate and narrow your results as needed.
Your results will be a list of articles, books and videos that have your search terms in them.
Your assignment is to find 1 scholarly journal article about psychology or human behavior; you can let the database help you limit your results to scholarly journal articles.
Note the Refine My Results options in the left column. Click the Peer Reviewed Journals box.
Next, note the option in the Refine My Results column to refine by subject. If your results are still too broad you can refine your results by subjects or subject thesaurus terms. So not only will the articles contain your particular search terms, but they will be about that topic. We can add "sleep disorders." This way our results are full text, scholarly, have the keywords "sleep disorders" and "psychology" and now are about Sleep Disorders.
Step 4
Look at your results. If they are too broad, or not focused enough on either sleep disorders or psychology, you can refine your results by subjects. So not only will the articles contain your particular search terms, but they will be about that topic.
We can add "sleep disorders." This way each article is from a peer reviewed journal, contains the keywords "sleep disorders" and "psychology," and now has a focus on sleep disorders (rather than merely containing that term somewhere in the article).
Note that you can also narrow by date:
Step 5
Are the articles relevant?
Once you have narrowed your results then you need to determine if they are relevant to your topic and if they are long enough for your project.
In order to read the abstract/summary of your article, click on the title.
The DESCRIPTION portion of the article is the abstract/summary.
Read the abstract to determine if it is about your topic or interesting to you. If it is relevant, then you need to determine if it is a research article. Most commonly, a research article is about a study which includes a research question that is tested through some kind of experiment. You will look for clue words such as this study, control group, participants, sample, respondents, methodology.
For more information about empirical research studies, see this Penn State webpage.
If the abstract looks good and the article is long enough, scroll down to the databases we subscribe to that contain this article and select one (sometimes you only have one choice, and sometimes the article appears in multiple databases. Usually it doesn't matter which one you choose to retrieve the article).
If you have a choice between a pdf and an html version of the article, choose the pdf. This format preserves the original content of the article, including tables, graphs, and illustrations, which are often removed from html versions.
All of our databases provide citations to the articles in several formats. Once you've opened the article, look for "Cite," "Cite this Source" or "Citation," and select the format you're looking for.
Often, databases don't format the citations quite correctly. See below.
Step 5?
Ask for help?
You can get help with your searches from the reference librarians at the Library. We answer questions in person, by telephone, by email and by chat. Click on the Ask A Librarian icon on the library homepage to get our contact information.
