As back-up to my classroom instruction sessions for psychology, I am providing some help guides here in Periodical World.
All of these help guides are under the Pages heading on the right side blog menu; they are also linked from this post.
There are several selections, each with a slightly different focus:
- Psychology Research Using PsycINFO: a page about PsycINFO with links to a printable MSWord document explaining PsycINFO searching as well as to pdf documents on Methodologies and fields in PsycINFO records
Also, knowing how to cite your sources is of critical importance. The library’s general help page for all subjects is linked here.
A specific source for finding writing help and teaching resources in the APA Style, as well as others, is The OWL (online writing lab) at Purdue University.
Northern Michigan University has an excellent online tutorial with a flash video presentation on APA Style for referencing online articles using the doi (digital object identifier), a unique alpha-numeric code for linking to permanent record versions of journal articles. Here is a link to an earlier blog post about those new APA guidelines for documenting electronic resources: APA style guide to electronic references.
A few words about the APA style when writing papers:
In addition to the General APA Guidelines for formating a paper, there are two common types of papers psychology students will be asked to write or to review: the literature review and the experimental report.
Each has unique requirements concerning the sections that must be included in the paper; specific information can be found at the OWL site at Purdue University.
I hope students & faculty find this resource useful for reviewing, or expanding on, what I cover in a library instruction session that is sometimes too short on time.
Please feel free to use the comments as a way to ask questions or get more guidance.
A recent article in the USF student newspaper has caused me some anguish as a librarian.
The student author of the article has garbled the descriptions and blurred the lines between “the internet” and the databases the library licenses that are accessible via the internet. Since he mentions Gleeson Library, I felt a need to write about this and clarify the differences between the two.
As the author points out, use of the internet for academic research has limitations with regard to reliability, authenticity, credibility, and accessibility. However, he fails to point out that Google searching, use of Wikipedia and other such internet resources are entirely different from accessing licensed library databases on the web.
When professors tell students not to use internet sources in their research papers they mean, don’t do Google searches and then cite any old web page that is retrieved. They do not mean, don’t utilize authoritative and credible databases provided by the library via the internet. Those very databases are where students can search for scholarly journal articles, empirical research studies, opinion pieces and statistics — the very relevant and essential content needed in order to write a quality, university-level essay or research paper. Most of those articles are available full-text, in html or pdf format, and can be printed out in the library, computer lab or at home.
There are also many government and educational websites on the internet that can be used for writing papers at university.
Of course, from my perspective as a librarian, the most egregious omission in the article is the failure to mention the assistance students can (and should) request at their college or university library. Librarians come to work every day looking forward to assisting students in their quest for information. We are accessible in-person or online and we invite all USF students to Ask A Librarian.
JAMA and other journals:
After a couple of years of wrangling we now finally have access from 1998-present for JAMA and the following 6 archive journals: Archives of Neurology, Archives of Internal Medicine, Archives of General Psychiatry, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Archives of Dermatology and Archives of Surgery.
Search for them in our Journal Finder: Journal Finder
and follow the link to the American Medical Association Journals.
A little about this blog . . . I decided I needed a better way to tell students, faculty and staff about things that are happening in the library and in the Periodicals Unit, in particular. I will be writing about electronic journals as well as print journals; giving some “behind the scenes” insight into how the periodicals collection is acquired, managed and made accessible to USF students, faculty and staff; and providing some helpful guides on using and troubleshooting the various electronic resources available to the USF community. I hope you find this informative and interesting and that you let me know if there is something you just have to know about serials.
