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PSYC 100 (Olson Bermudez) FA24

Introduction

Welcome PSYC 100!

I'm here to support you with your research.

Questions? Email me at svonwinckelmann@miracosta.edu

Keyword Tips

Keywords are the most important ideas in your topic.

Advanced Search Strategies: 

  • “Quotation marks” keep words together "positive psychology"
  • AND searches all terms "positive psychology" AND adolescents
  • Truncation (shift 8 to get the asterisk) searches multiple variations of a word. mindful* - mindful, mindfulness, and mindfully at once

Grow Your Keyword List With: 

  • Words you read in abstracts, article titles, and subject headings

Empirical Articles vs Literature Reviews

Empirical Articles

Literature Reviews

Based on original research conducted by the authors.

  • Often include tables, charts, and graphs
  • Includes sections like 'Introduction,' 'Methods,' 'Results,' and 'Discussion.'
  • Details how the study was conducted, including data collection and analysis.
  • Provides specific information about participants, experiments, and data.

Summarizes and synthesizes existing research on a specific topic.

  • Keywords like “review,” "systematic" or "meta-analysis" in title or abstract.
  • Mentions combining data from several studies in the abstract.
  • Discusses various studies broadly without specific data or experiments.
  • Focuses on combining data from existing studies rather than new ones.
  • Lacks sections like 'Methods' or 'Results.'    

EBSCOhost Video

JSTOR Video

OneSearch Video

Scholarly Databases