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Psychology Research

A Brief Introduction to Psychology from YouTube

Which Database Should You Use?

Selecting the right database can be the best way to find relevant articles about research results.  If you're an undergraduate, you may want to start with a general database, like JSTOR or ACADEMIC SEARCH ULTIMATE and then move on to a more specialized one like PsycInfo or PsycARTICLES (a subset of PsycInfo).  

If you can't seem to find anything on your research topic, try different keywords. Also, look at the Subject Headings or Descriptors that help describe an article.  Watch the video tutorials in this guide for help.  Remember, you can always ask for help by using the ASK A LIBRARIAN  box. 

Research Databases at Pace:

  • can be subject specific (e.g. psychology literature)  or multidisciplinary (includes articles from many academic disciplines and professions).
  • usually includes useful filters to narrow results such as Peer Reviewed, Publication Date, Methodology, Age, etc.
  • Offers a Dashboard or other tools to save searches and articles; create Projects to save search results in; email search results; get the article citation, and more.
  • may include articles that have only a citation and abstract; but clicking may lead to the full-text article in another Pace database; if the article is not available elsewhere at Pace, you'll find a link to request the article via InterLibrary Loan (ILL). (We obtain the article PDF from another library and email you a link to it.)
  • often includes the full text of an article in PDF or HTML format.
  • may be fairly small as far as number of journals, magazines, and newspapers included (for example, the Sage Journals database) or quite large (such as Academic Search Ultimate.)