The Research Experience. Ann Sloan Devlin
may prefer to search for articles using the database PsycARTICLES because every article in that database is provided full text. The articles come from journals published by the APA and affiliated publishers. In contrast, articles identified through PsycINFO may provide full text but not necessarily. There is a distinct advantage to PsycINFO, however, because PsycINFO contains abstracts from more than 2,200 journals, many more than provided by PsycARTICLES. By using PsycINFO, you have access to a much greater breadth of information about a particular topic. In other words, potentially having to search a bit longer to obtain a full text version of an article is worth the effort in terms of becoming familiar with the published work on a topic.
PsycARTICLES: Database of articles from the American Psychological Association.
Revisit and Respond 2.4
Explain how you would obtain an article that is not available as full text downloadable.
What is the difference between PDF Full Text and HTML Full Text?
What is the difference in journal coverage between PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES?
Summary of the Article Locator Search Process
Start with a solid database in your field, such as PsycINFO, locate articles of interest, and then see whether those articles are linked directly to full text or available through full text holdings supported by your institution. If not, request the article through your library’s version of interlibrary loan. Although it may be easier to limit yourself to electronic journal sources to obtain articles directly (i.e., full text downloadable), the shortest path does not necessarily guarantee that you will secure the most important articles.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Systems and World Catalog (WorldCat)
You need to be familiar with the manner in which your library obtains materials (typically books and journal articles) that it neither owns nor to which it has direct access. As was discussed, these materials can be obtained through some kind of interlibrary loan system. Many libraries offer an interlibrary loan Web interface called ILLiad to request books and journal articles. You typically need to set up your own ILL (interlibrary loan) account (check with your librarian).
WorldCat: Worldwide catalog listing books, monographs, videos, and sound recordings; useful for determining what institution owns a resource in order to retrieve it.
WorldCat (World Catalog) is another useful resource to obtain materials not available in your library. As the name “world” suggests, this database is worldwide; it includes books, monographs, videos, and sound recordings. Most library systems have a link to WorldCat as one of their databases. A book entry in WorldCat will tell you whether your library owns the item, what institutions in your state own it (including public libraries), and who owns the item beyond your state.
Try This Now 2.4
In WorldCat, search for a book whose title you know and see whether it is in your library’s holdings; if not, what library close to you owns the book?
What to Do With Your Articles (Read More Than the Abstract!)
If you develop a research idea by only reading abstracts, the quality of your research project will suffer. An Abstract of 250 or fewer words does not provide sufficient detail to make decisions related to your project. You need to read beyond the Abstract to determine the paper’s true relevance to your idea. You may find it useful to start with the Method and Discussion sections before reading the other sections of the paper. Many of the important details come in the section that describes how the research was done, known as the Method section. This section includes the “who” (the participants and their number), the “what” (the measures/equipment), and the “how” (the procedure). You can quickly see the nature and scope of the undertaking and consider its relevance to your circumstances (in terms of participants, measures, and/or equipment). The Discussion reports whether the hypotheses were supported, connects the findings to the literature on the topic, acknowledges limitations, and gives some ideas for future directions. The description of the limitations and presentation of future directions both may help shape your research idea.
Method: Heading in American Psychological Association (APA) research paper in which you present your Participants, Materials/Measures/Instruments, and Procedure.
Discussion: Title of section in a manuscript when you interpret the results, centered and bolded in American Psychological Association (APA) style.
How many articles do you need to read? There is no firm number, but in reading between 20 and 30 articles, you will become increasingly familiar with the topic and will begin to see the same articles cited again and again. When this happens, you have begun to identify the important publications in the field; these should serve as a foundation for your work.
Many articles you read will follow APA publication style. If that is the case, the articles will be divided into (a) a review of the literature, (b) a method section (with subsections dealing with participants, measures, and procedure), (c) the findings (Results), and (d) the meaning of the work (Discussion). The section heading labels may differ somewhat depending on the nature of the research consulted (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods).
Figure 2.11 Overview of Connections to Resources Available Through Your Library
Source: Adapted from Devlin (2006), p. 29, Figure 1.3.
The Introduction
The Introduction is usually shaped like a funnel, starting out broadly with some general comments about the area of interest, then gradually tapering to focus on particular variables, and finally narrowing to the specific hypotheses, which are usually stated at the end of the introduction (more aspects of writing will be covered in Chapter 13). In the presentation of the literature, which names (key players) and theories appear repeatedly? Are there different “camps” representing conflicting theoretical orientations? Work that is cited repeatedly is sometimes called seminal or keystone. Look out for these studies because they may have historical, methodological, or theoretical importance. Two techniques, tree backward and tree forward (Martin, 2007, pp. 125–126), help you canvas the literature to make sure you have identified the important work. When you tree backward, you identify a citation in the article you are reading that looks promising (often on the basis of what was said about it in the article), and then go to THAT article to examine its references. You continue to do this, working backward in time from the most recent to the earliest articles. If you tree forward, you see which other (more recent) authors have cited the article you are currently reading. To tree forward, you use a database like the Social Sciences Citation Index or the “cited by” functions of PsycINFO or Scopus.
Introduction: Part of a manuscript that introduces the topic, reviews relevant literature, and ends with hypotheses.
Tree backward: Search technique for working backward through previously published work to obtain resources.
Tree forward: search technique looking forward to see what more recent articles have cited the article of interest.
The Hypotheses
The statement of hypotheses (see definition in Chapter 1) typically comes at the end of the Introduction. The statement of hypotheses