. . . now in a wiki!!!!
I am currently in the process of moving my help guides over to a wiki platform.
Please go to Psychology Research Help to find the guides.
September 18, 2009
March 10, 2008
Psychology Research Resources
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:
- Empirical Research: what is empirical research and how to recognize it
- 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
- Using PubMed for Research: how to search for research articles in PubMed
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.
February 22, 2008
The Librarian, 1947 version
Brewster Kahle spoke yesterday at the Davies Forum run by David Silver, Media Studies professor. He is the founder and digital librarian at the non-profit Internet Archive; he also helps direct the Open Content Alliance. “Public or perish, universal access to all knowledge,” are his battle cries.
Visit the Internet Archive and you can spend many hours reading, watching and enjoying yourself. In the Moving Images database you will find all sorts of wonderful films. One of my faves, naturally, is The Librarian (1947). Watching this vocational film definitely has the feel of a “wayback” moment — I find it intriguing to see what a librarian career choice meant 60 years ago (yes . . . 60 years!) and how, in a funny/odd sort of way, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Watch and see what you think.
December 19, 2007
Internet, web-accessed databases, student research
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.
September 25, 2007
New APA citation style for electronic articles
As many of you are aware, APA made a couple of major changes this summer in how electronic articles are to be cited in reference lists. Instead of issuing a new edition of the style manual, they created a PDF download that covered just the changes.
The library now has the rights to allow campus-wide access to this update through a password protected link to the document in the library’s catalog. It’s available to all USF students, faculty and staff.
The link to the catalog record is here: APA style guide to electronic references [electronic resource]
Once the record is pulled up, click on the “View or Print: APA style guide to electronic references pdf” and you will be prompted to login with your name and USF ID number. Once this is done, the pdf of the document will be retrieved.
Shortly there will also be a link on the library’s Documenting Sources web page to link people directly to the document.
