Librarian
Comparison of databases
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PsycINFO | Web of Science | Google Scholar |
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What it is |
A database of scholarly articles, book chapters, and dissertations in Psychology. | A database of scholarly articles in all disciplines. It is designed to allow searching of citations. | Google’s search of scholarly articles. It covers most academic publishers and articles posted on college and university websites. |
| It's awesome for... | …doing a search on a topic in psychology, especially if you have parameters such a specific methodology, population, or a test/measure that you’re interested in. | …starting with an article and seeing who has cited it (and who has cited that…). Especially good for finding newer research. | …finding the full text of an article that you can’t find elsewhere, sometimes. Authors sometimes put their article up on the web, giving you free access. |
| What you need | List of key words or phrases that describe your topic. | List of key words or phrases, or the title of an article that you're interested in. | If you’re looking for a specific article, the title of that article. Or very specific key words and phrases. |
| Drawbacks | Does not search the full text or articles in disciplines outside of Psychology | Does not search the full text. | It can be hard to narrow results, no discipline-specific indexing. May take you to sites that ask for money to access them – please, DON’T pay for access to articles! |
| Search notes |
PsycINFO provides a lot of specialized limiters on the advanced search screen: You can limit results based Tests & Measures, Methodology (empirical study or literature review, for example), and Population. Use a different row for each different concept. Add synonyms for concepts in a box separated by the word OR (eg: college OR university). If you need help coming up with terms, check out the Thesaurus. The link is in the upper left corner. |
Once you’ve got a list of results, you can narrow it by keyword, subject, or type of document along the left side. When looking at an article:
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If the article is available for free, you’ll see a link to the right of the result. If you see “Carleton Full Text” link, the library has access to the article. Click it to get access. Off-campus? Go to Settings and then click Library Links and search for Carleton College. You'll see the "Full Text" links when we have the article. If there is no free access, click "More" and then "Check Library Holdings". Request the article via ILL from there. |
Other databases for psychology articles
Start with the databases compared above. While those databases are the main places to look for psychology articles, depending on your topic, you may also want to look at some of these databases.
- Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Annual reviews are great places to find literature reviews on particular topics. The database searches all of the Annual Review titles, and we have full text access to Annual Review of Psychology, and Annual Review of Neuroscience among others. - Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive source of scholarly work on Linguistics. - MEDLINE This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The place to search for medical information. - ProQuest Biological Science Database This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Includes the renowned Biological Sciences, MEDLINE, and TOXLINE databases and provides full-text titles from around the world including, scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, government publications, and more. Covers 1946 - current.
How to get the full-text of the article
Some library databases give you only the citation and abstract of the article. So if you've found a perfect article, how do you get to the full text? The truth is, the full text can be in different locations, so follow these steps to get to find the article. (details for each step are below)
1. Make sure what you're looking for is an article.
2. Look for any direct links to the article.
3. Use the Find It! button
4. Check Google Scholar
5. Request the article from Interlibrary Loan
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1. Is the source an article?
Before you spend too much time trying to find an article, make sure it's an article, not a book, a book chapter, or some other source. Most databases will give you that information. If what you're looking for is in a book, search for the title of that book (not the book chapter) in Catalyst.
If we don't have the book, search for it on WorldCat and request the book via ILL from there.
2. Check for direct links to full text
If there is a link to the full text from the database, click it! It will say PDF Full Text, HTML Full Text, Linked Full Text, or something similar.
3. Use the Find It! button
The "Find It" button
searches Carleton and St. Olaf libraries to see if we have the article and if so, how to access it.
If there is online access, click the title of the database to get to the full text.
[visual description: screen shot of the Catalyst screen showing a link to online access of an article. Click the link after "Full text available from..."]
If it's in print, click on the Physical Copies tab and write down the call number so you can find the journal. Journals are shelved on the 3rd floor of the library.
If the journal is in print at St. Olaf, click the link for the St. Olaf Print Periodicals. You'll need to log in to Catalyst first, and then request the journal.
[visual description: screen shot showing the "Sign in for request options" link]
If we don't have access to the journal, move on to the next steps:
4. Check Google Scholar
Google Scholar indexes scholarly content on the Internet, including content that may be available for free. Search for the title of the article in quotes.
If there is free access, it will be linked on the right side next to the results by clicking on Carleton Full Text as shown below.
NOTE: Google Scholar will also point you to the publisher's site, which will ask you for money to purchase the article if the library doesn't have a subscription to that journal. Order the article through ILL instead (see step 5).
5. Request from InterLibrary Loan
Request articles we don't have through InterLibrary Loan. Articles will be scanned and sent to you as a pdf, and typically arrive in 2-3 days, but can take longer.
Click "Request Document via ILLiad" from the Catalyst page (see above). Log in with your Carleton username and password, and the form will be filled out for the article.
You can also submit a request manually through ILLiad.
