Information literacy instruction for the PSY 1010 General Psychology class. Includes information about the research article assignment.

1. PSY 1010
GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
Information Literacy
Library Instruction Session

2. LIBRARY INFORMATION
Contact:
Telephone: 301.322.0476
E-mail: librefdesk@pgcc.edu

3. OUTLINE
• Library Website
• Keyword / Search Strategies
• Online Databases

4. LIBRARY
WEBSITE
URL: http://library.pgcc.edu

5. Use the links
on the left
side to
navigate
through the
library’s
website.

6. LIBRARY WEBSITE HIGHLIGHTS
 Getting Started
 this page provides information about the library and
its services
 Library Tutorial
 a tutorial to teach basic skills for doing research and
information literacy skills to find, retrieve, analyze,
and use the information effectively
 Citation Style Guides
 list of links for different style guides

7. SEARCH
STRATEGIES

8. • Searching databases is NOT like
searching Google
• Databases work on KEYWORDS

9. WHAT ARE KEYWORDS?
 A keyword is:
 the word or words that the question is about
 the important words in the question
 Remember:
 some keywords are really key phrases (i.e., national parks,
California missions)
 another way to come up with key phrases is to rework the
research question into a statement

10. EXAMPLE QUESTION – WHAT IS THE
KEYWORD/TOPIC?
I want to do my research paper on obese
children
 Keyword/topic: obese children

11. SYNONYMS
 A synonym is:
 word or words that mean the same as another word but are
spelled differently
 Examples: big-large, hungry-famished, tiny-small, sleepy-tired,
poisonous-venomous, pretty-beautiful
 Use a thesaurus to find synonyms
 Visual Thesaurus: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
 Roget's II: The New Thesaurus : http://thesaurus.com/

12. EXPAND THE LIST OF KEYWORDS
WITH RELATED TERMS AND
SYNONYMS
Child Obesity
• Kid • Overweight
• Minor • Fatness
• Juvenile • Corpulence
• Infant
• Baby

13. 5 W'S AND THE H
In this example, Child Obesity, the topic is broad. Before going into
the databases, you want to narrow down your topic.
A good way to narrow down your topic is to use the 5 W's and the
H idea generation strategy. In this approach we ask a series of
questions that will expand our topic. These questions are:
 Who
 What
 When
 Where
 Why
 How

14. 5 W'S AND THE H – CHILD OBESITY
 Who is concerned/involved? – parents, child,
educators
 What is the problem? – child obesity, eating disorder
 When is it taking place? – are you focusing on the
present or some point in the past
 Where? – are you focusing in the US? Maryland?
Largo?
 Why is child obesity a concern? – are you looking at it
from a psychological point of view? Social?
 How is obesity affecting children? – psychically,
emotionally, in their education, in their social
environment

15. BOOLEAN OPERATORS
USE BOOLEAN OPERATORS to relate
the terms in specific ways that will affect
the results of a search.
• AND
• OR
• NOT

16. AND
retrieves only articles
that contain all the
terms and will narrow
the search
“child obesity” AND Maryland
“child obesity” AND “eating disorder”

17. OR
retrieves articles
with any of the
terms and will
broaden the search
“child obesity” OR “overweight children”

18. NOT
eliminates articles
containing the second term
even when the first term is
present. This will narrow
the search
obesity AND children NOT adults

19. KEY CONCEPTS
 USE QUOTATION MARKS " " before and after a
phrase, two or more words that must be together in a
defined order.
 Example: “African American”, “eating disorder”, “obsessive
compulsive disorder”
 This lets the database know that you want to search for this
phrase, and not the individual words that make up the phrase.

20. ANATOMY OF A RESEARCH ARTICLE – BASIC PARTS
1. Title
2. Author (s) – an article can have one, ten or more authors
3. Abstract – this is a paragraph that lets you know what the
article is about, a summary
4. Introduction – here is where the authors talk about their
research in a general way
5. Methodology – includes sample and procedures
6. Results – this presents the results, usually with charts or
tables
7. Discussion – here the authors talk about their results
8. References – a list of the sources the authors used to
write their article

21. Title
Author(s)
Abstract

24. RESEARCH
DATABASES

25. ACCESS
 To access the research databases:
1. Go to the library’s website: http://library.pgcc.edu
2. From the left side menu, click on the RESEARCH
DATABASE link
3. A new page will open
4. Select the BY SUBJECT tab
5. From the left side menu (Databases by Subject)
click on Psychology

26. PSYCHOLOGY DATABASES
 PsycARTICLES - is a robust database offering complete access to
the full text of more than 80 landmark journals in behavioral science
and related fields ranging from education, to nursing, to business, to
neuroscience.
 Psychology Journals (ProQuest) - encompasses a wide range of
topics from leading psychology and psychosomatic publications. In
addition to clinical and social psychology, it also provides coverage of
related disciplines including genetics, psychology of business and
economics, communication, and more.
 Psychology Collection - gives individuals a basic understanding of
the study of the mind, emotions and how the human mind develops
and diminishes over time. Researchers will have access to hundreds
of subject-appropriate full-text periodicals - many cited in the
PsycINFO index.

27. OFF-CAMPUS ACCESS
To access the research databases from
home (off-campus/remotely) you need:
OWL Link username
Password