Subject Guide: Psychology

To get best results in PsycInfo, try separating different search terms on their own lines. This database does not respond well to natural language searches.

You will tune up your search results by applying Limits or Filters. This technique will help you gain precision in your results.

A very popular option under Methodology is the Qualitative and Quantitative filters.

Boolean logic creates a relationship between your subjects that the computer understands. Understanding the operators will get you pretty far.

Using wildcards is a way to expand your search possibilities. Instead of adding multiple lines of search fields, wildcards can collapse those into one. These techniques work in most databases (but not all). There are no wildcard options in Science Direct.

Wildcards — a symbol used to represent any 1 character. Use # symbol or sometimes * symbol.

Wildcards can usually be used 1) at the end of a word or 2) within a word to search variant spellings of a word. See Truncation for a technique to represent more than 1 character. You can use more than one wildcard symbol to stand in for more than one character.

Example: wom#n retrieves woman or women

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Using truncation is a way to expand your search possibilities. Instead of adding multiple lines of search fields, truncation can collapse those into one. These techniques work in most databases (but not all). There are no truncation options in Science Direct.

Truncation — a symbol added to the end of the root of a word to instruct the database to search for all forms of a word. Use the * symbol in most databases.

     Example: adolescen* retrieves adolescent, adolescents, or adolescence