PSYC 141 - Research Methods

Almost all of your research will begin at the Library homepage https://www.hofstra.edu/library

It is important that you are familiar with it. Below is a link to a document which shows the Library homepage and on which I have placed boxes outlined in red indicating what the most frequently used links are used for.

The database section of this Libguide focuses on PsycINFO, but there are a number of other Ebsco databases in medicine and education which you may also want to use, depending on your research interests.

The document below also advises on the other databases, the use of specialized psychology reference materials to provide background information on topics, and other information.

Please review the document below.

HOFSTRA NETWORK ACCOUNT

MOST OF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH YOUR HOFSTRA ACCOUNT - BUT PLEASE REVIEW

You have been assigned a Hofstra Network account.
Your username is typically your ID #, which is also on your ID card, and you are assigned a password, which you can change.

This username/pw allows you to enter the portal, access your course registration information, grades, etc.
It also enables you to

• access Hofstra subscription materials, such as databases required for use in your courses
• use your print account, which is automatically assigned to you containing $120 for 1200 prints @10 cents per print  (note - a "print" is one sheet of paper, either single- or double-sided)
• interlibrary loan materials

See the attached document on how to get assistance with PridePrint through the my.hofstra.edu portal.

If you haven't gotten your ID card yet, it is important to get it as it is required to enter certain classrooms and to enter computer labs.

Why Inter-Library Loan (ILL)?

Because NO institution can carry every journal, every book.  If Hofstra doesn’t own a book or have access to an article, use Interlibrary Loan.  Interlibrary Loan is a free service through which you can borrow books and receive copies of articles from other institutions.  Use the same username and password you use to log onto my.hofstra.edu to log into Interlibrary Loan.  You will see a link to Interlibrary Loan on the Library homepage under Popular Services.  There is also a link on the Student Services page on the Library homepage.  Here is a link to a guide explaining how to use Interlibrary Loan: https://libguides.hofstra.edu/c.php?g=392852&p=2731511 .

Our Interlibrary Loan platform is integrated in most of our databases.  When the full text of an item is not available in the database you are using, you will see the Find Article button  on the article record.  Click on this button to access the full text in another database or be directed to Interlibrary Loan services.  Once you log in from the link provided in the article record, the Interlibrary Loan form will be filled in with the article information and all you will have to do is answer one question and submit the request.

Before searching PsycINFO, look at the attached document.  For each "item" in PsycINFO or any other database, there is an item record. The item record contains fields, such as AUTHOR(s), TITLE, SOURCE (i.e., journal title), ABSTRACT, SUBJECT, etc.

Reviewing the item record of an item can enrich your searching by providing subject terms to refine your search, professionally written abstracts to increase your knowledge about the item at hand and your topic more broadly, and presenting the names of researchers (authors) and publications (source field) that publish research on your topic.  Taking a few moments to review relevant items can increase the precision and relevance of the results of your searches making your research process more efficient.

In class, you put items in your folder.  You can also generate an APA-style reference list of the items in your folder.

The image below is my folder from our class. Notice that it indicates there are 8 articles in the folder. Notice also that on the right sidebar there is a link to "print".

Clicking on "print" brings you to this page - follow the instructions in red

You will arrive at the page below.  You don't actually want to print the citations - you want to paste them into your paper. So X OUT OF THE PRINT BOX (highlighted in red)

Now copy and paste your citations...

into your Word document ...

Now you have some cleaning up to do. For example, the list has to be in alphabetical order, double-spaced, have "References" centered at the top, etc. You can review APA-style more with your professor. 

Also, ALL citation managers make errors.  I've highlighted some errors - can you figure out what is wrong with them?

You should check the citations against the instructions on the APA-style Citation guide located at https://libguides.hofstra.edu/APA-citation-guide