How to use PsycINFO This guide provides information on the following topics: -Accessing PsychINFO via the RU McConnell Library webpage -General Keywords vs. Subject Terms -Searching PsychINFO using General Keywords -Navigating, Marking, and Saving Search Results -Searching PsycINFO using Subject Terms -Combining Searches using the Search History (AND, OR, & NOT) -Refining/Limiting searches -Searching for Authors -Searching for Journals Accessing PsycINFO - PsycINFO can be accessed on or off campus via the McConnell Library webpage (http://lib.radford.edu/) - From the McConnell library homepage, move the cursor arrow over “Find Articles & More” option. - You will notice that several options appear to the right (as displayed here). - From these options select (leff-click) the “I know exactly which database to use!” option - There are two ways to proceed from the Finding Articles & More page. A- you can choose your database from an alphabetical list. - We want PsycINFO so we would choose P from the list. B- you can choose your database from the lists of shortcuts. - EBSCOhost is the service through which we access PsychINFO- Accessing PsycINFO from the Alphabetical List Scroll to Bottom of List Accessing PsycINFO from the EBSCO database list. Scroll to Bottom of ListGeneral Keywords vs Subject Terms -Before getting started, it is important to distinguish between the two most common methods of searching for topics: the General Keyword search and Subject Term search. - A general keyword search will return all of the citations in the PsycINFO database where the word or words of interest appear in any of the default fields of the citation (e.g. abstract, title, journal title, keywords, subjects, author name, author affiliation, etc..) - A Subject Term search will return all of the citations in the PsycINFO database where the word or words of interest appear in the Subject field. The subject field represents the terms that PsycINFO has identified as reflecting the central components of the Article, with respect to the larger classification system for articles that PsycINFO has developed. Subject Terms searches are far more focused than General Keyword searches. -It is also important to note that there is another keyword search that we will refer to as a Specific Keyword. The Specific Key words are words or terms that the author(s) and/or journal editor have identified as reflecting the central components of the Article. These keywords are presented in the Keywords field of a citation. - The default for PsychINFO is to suggest a Subject Term search unless the word or term being entered can not be paired with any Subject Terms. In such a case PsycINFO will perform a General Keyword search. Searching with a General Keywords - To conduct a General Keyword search, you will first need to disable the automatic “Suggest Subject Terms” option (circled above). - Type the word or term in the “Find:” field, and then either press “Enter” on the keyboard or left-click search. - This will generate a results list that will include all of the citations in which the word or term appears somewhere in the citation. - On the following page are the results of a search for the term Leukotomy as a General Keyword. Thought full page is not displayed, on this page of results you would find the first 10 of 63 citations where the word Leukotomy appears somewhere in the citation.Navigating, Marking, and Saving Search Results - The results frame (above) presents partial citations for all of the citations that match the search criteria. Specifically, the title, author(s), other citation information, and the abstract (if available) are presented. Also, information on number of cited reference the article contains and information on the number of citations in the database which reference that citation. The example above cites 11 other works, but has not been cited by any other works in the PsycINFO data base. HTML Full Text may also be available here, though PDFs do not seem to be. In general, HTML full text is a poor substitute for a pdf copy of the original article. - The complete reference can be accessed by left-clicking on the article title. Full citation is presented below.- When saving or printing citations, it is typically useful to save the full citation. The full citation provides us with three useful pieces of information, above and beyond the information presented in the results frame. 1. It gives us the ISSN or ISBN number with can speed the Interlibrary Loan procedure. 2. It gives us the subject terms under which this article has been located. This could help identify other relevant articles on this topic and give you ideas on other relevant subjects to search. Notice too that the subject terms are hyperlinked, and clicking on any subject term will generate a search for all articles with that subject term. 3. It gives us the Specific Keywords that the author had identified which may help us find other relevant articles. - Marking relevant Citations - Ultimately the goal of any search is to get the large number of articles narrowed down a smaller set of specifically relevant citations. The initial search list will typically contain a large number of citations that are really not germane to the topic of interest. Thus, as you find citations you want to keep, those can be marked or Added to a search Folder. This folder is essentially another results frame that only includes the articles that you add. This folder can then be further searched and narrowed down, printed, saved, or emailed to yourself. - To add a citation to the search folder, left click the “add to folder” icon for the relevant article. This can be done either from the results frame or from the full citation window. - The list of marked articles can be viewed from nearly all windows in PsychINFO, by clicking the “View Folder” option located at the top right of the screen above the EBSCO header. - Citations can be removed from this folder by left-clicking the X next to each citation or using the Remove all option at the top of the Folder List frame. - Printing, Saving, E-mailing Marked Citations - Individual citations can be printed, e-mailed, or saved from within the full citation window, by using the icons at the top of the widow. - Within the folder contents window you can print, e-mail, or save multiple citations at once.- Printing - Clicking the print icon will