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Academic Resource Center (ARC) Research & Writing Resources

Creating Your Search

Creating Your Search

Create Your Search Strategy

Researching a topic involves several components:

  • Getting a broad overview of a topic (literature reviews and meta analysis)
  • Creating a search strategy (using the search strategy worksheet)
  • Choosing where to look for articles
    • Ebscohost- 
      • PsycInfo
      • PubMed
      • Business Source Complete
    • Google Scholar

Using Ebscohost

How To Use Ebscohost

WJC has a variety of databases available through Ebscohost. 

The top two databases on the list:
PsycInfo and Medline Complete,
are different than the others.

They are the best places to start your search.

  • PsycInfo has summaries of articles for psychology
  • Medline Complete has summaries of articles for biological medicine

You may want to click on the select all box to
search all databases at once.

It's quicker but you might be overwhelmed with
a lot of articles that don't meet your needs.

Another approach is to do a more targeted search by
choosing specific database and search one database at a time. 

 

Choosing a database in Ebscohost

PsycInfo
PsycInfo is the most likely
place you will start your search.

This database from the
American Psychological Association,
is focused on psychological issues.		  

PsycInfo Basic Search Tutorial

Search Strategy

Click here to access the Search Strategy worksheet!

Print this worksheet to plan your research by breaking
down your research question into search terms.

Starting your search:

  • Research resources from the WJC library (PsycInfo, Proquest etc.)
  • How to integrate WJC Library Resources with Google Scholar searches
  • Creating a research strategy

Research Strategies Overview 

Video describes how to create a search strategy and how to use that strategy to research William James College databases and Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar

One of the easiest ways to find
peer-reviewed articles is to use
Google Scholar.

  • Google Scholar allows you to look for
    key words related to your topic of interest.
  • It allows you to search for other articles
    that have cited an article you are using.
  • It allows you to find related articles.
  • It can be linked to the William James
    library so you can get articles that might
    not be available directly from Google Scholar.
  • Watch the video to learn how to connect to the WJC library.