Research Guide for Psychology

Contact: Jennie McKee , Access Services Librarian

Getting Started

There are many handbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias that describe psychological terms, names, data, etc. If you wish to explore your topic, these reference provide definitions and introductory information about the subject. Other more specialized resources are available in the Reference Room:

APA Dictionary of Psychology
Ref BF31 .A63 2007

AccessScience
Online version of McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology. Covers all science.

The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science 3rd ed.
Ref BF 31 .E52 2001

Encyclopedia of Psychology
Ref BF 31 .E52 2000

Glossary of Cognitive Science
Ref BF311 .D84 1993
Definitions and brief explanations of the terminology of cognitive science. For students in psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience.

The Oxford Companion to the Mind
Ref BF31 .O94 2004
Covers a broad range of topics in psychology in one volume including aspects of language and communication, biological and medical measurements of psychophysics and psychopathology, and the philosophical antecedents of psychological theories and thought.

Psychology: A Guide to Reference and Information Resources
Ref BF 121 .B39 1993
A comprehensive guide covering all the major psychological disciplines. The largest section, covering specialized topics in psychology, follows the classification used in Psychological abstracts.

Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
Ref BF 32 .T54 2005
A thesaurus of the terms used in PsycInfo with related terms and a rotated alphabetical term list.

MESH Medical Subject Headings
The thesaurus used in Medline. Use the MESH browser to search for related terms for your concepts.


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Review Publications

Review publications contain articles that review the research already done in a given area. A review article can give you a very good up-to-date synthesis of a particular topic, and provide you with an extensive bibliography. The following is a selection of review publications available at the Reed College Library. Follow the links for complete library holdings.

Annual Review of Neuroscience
Annual Review of Psychology
Review of Personality and Social Psychology
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Trends in Neurosciences (TINS)


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Locating Books

To locate books, look in the online library catalog. If you know the author or editor, search by Author, last name first. To search by Title, you must know the first few words of the title, but you do not have to know the complete title. To search successfully by Subject, you must use subject terms from the Library of Congress Subject Headings. These can be found in large red books directly behind the Reference Desk.

If you cannot find a particular subject, try a Word search. Once you locate some appropriate book titles, make note of the subject headings assigned to them. You can then do a Subject search on those headings to locate more books. Alternatively, you can check the stacks for other books with similar call numbers.

To search for books in the Summit system, access the library catalog as usual, and select button "Search in Summit" above the record. If you find books in Summit which are not owned by Reed, you can request the books directly from the catalog. You will need to enter your barcode number (it is on the back of your Reed ID card). You will be notified when the book arrives. The borrowing period is three weeks with one renewal allowed.


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Finding Journal Articles and Essays

Indexes (sometimes called databases) allow you to search the contents of periodicals to identify articles on your topic. Some indexes are inter-disciplinary, and some focus on a particular subject area. Some contain fulltext or links to fulltext from other sources. Many include citations for books, dissertations, and conference papers as well as journal articles.

After you find a citation for an article, you will need to check the Print & Electronic Journal page to see if Reed subscribes to the journal and if we have the particular issue.

If the article you are looking for is not available at Reed, you can request it from Interlibrary loan (periodicals cannot be borrowed from Summit).

Academic Search Premier   (1975 - present)
Multi-disciplinary database that provides indexing and abstracts for over 7000 journals, with fulltext for close to 4000.

Cogprints - Psychology
Bibliography from the Cognitive Sciences Eprint Archive with abstracts. It is both browsable and searchable.

JSTOR   (coverage varies)
Searchable electronic archive of the fulltext of journals. Coverage is from journal's first date of publication to three to five years before the present date.

LexisNexis Academic   (coverage varies)
Choose Medical under the Academic Search Forms on the left. Medical News Articles are from medical and health news sources covering healthcare and Medical Journals Articles are from medical and health journals covering a wide range of medical topics

Linguistics Abstracts Online   (1985-present)
Provides abstracts to articles in nearly 300 linguistics journals.

MEDLINE   (1965 - present)
Covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Available from NLM as PubMed.

Mental Measurements Yearbook   (coverage varies)
Contains descriptive information and critical reviews of more than 2,000 commercially-available standardized English-language educational, personality, aptitude, neuropsychological, achievement and intelligence tests. Online edition does not work with Safari. Print (Ref LB3021 .M45) is also available; previous in stacks.

Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection   (1965 - present)
Searchable database of 575 fulltext journals in psychology and closely related fields.

PsycINFO   (1806 - present)
PsycINFO covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, and linguistics. Links are provided to the fulltext of some journal articles.

Social Sciences Index   (1983 - present)
Guide to the literature of the social sciences.

Web of Science   (1900 - present)
Web version of Science Citation Index (1900 - present) and Social Sciences Citation Index (1956 - present). The two indexes may be searched separately or together. Searching for references cited in books and journal articles, as well for subjects, authors, and titles. Please logoff when you have finished searching Web of Science, as only a few people may access the database simultaneously.

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Selected Web Resources

APA Online - Students
Resources for students from the American Psychological Association.

Neurosciences on the Internet
"A searchable and browsable index of neuroscience resources available on the Internet: Neurobiology, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science sites and information on human neurological diseases. "


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Writing Guides

APA Style.org
The latest APA's style guidelines for citing electronic resources.

Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals
BF76.8 .G85 2000

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing
Ref PN147 .G444 1998

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
Ref LB2369 .G53 1999

Reed College Thesis Formatting Information

Writing Empirical Research Reports: a Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences
LB2369 .P97 2003

Writing Papers in Psychology: a Student Guide
BF76.7 .R67 2006


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