Skip to Main Content

Finding Full-Text, Peer Reviewed Psychology Articles: Search PsycARTICLES

This guide should help you in finding full-text, peer reviewed articles from JCCC library databases. If you continue to have difficulty in finding appropriate articles, call the Reference desk at 469-3178 for more assistance.

About PsycARTICLES

Offers all full-text, peer-reviewed article from 117 key journals published by both the American Psychological and the Canadian Psychological Associations and other creditable sources.  Most included APA journals go back to volume #1, issue #1 and updates to contents are weekly.  Coverage currently exceeds 180,000 articles.

Find PsycARTICLES by going to the Billington Library's site homepage. Click the tab DATABASES & select Subjects to find the Psychology grouping. Choose PsycARTICLES, and if you are a currently enrolled JCCC student you will be directed to the search interface. Opening PsycARTICLES defaults to Advanced Search mode, giving greater search flexibility, focus, and control over retrieving articles.

Search Tips & Thoughts: 

  • Search for contents by specifying keyword(s) that may occur in the article title, abstract, or in the full-text, or by author names and journal titles.
  • Given a specific article you may also link to the Table of Contents [TOC} for that journal issue.
  • Firmly grasp & understand how Boolean logic connectors, AND, OR, NOT affect both the search and delivered results.
  • Use "quotation marks" to search for exact word phrases only, such as "fear of public speaking" or "binge drinking".
  • Searching default finds documents with all identified terms entered in a search box, this equates to using the logic link AND between individual words.
  • Separate terms with OR to find any of the key words of interest entered, its serves to broaden the results.
  • Explore the HELP feature---lots of offered tips, techniques, and information can help you search for precision and find what you need.
  • Articles may be viewed as either HTML running text or in PDF view.

Advanced Searching in PsycARTICLES

Example Search:  Find psychological research  exploring issues  about obesity or weight and  its affect on perceptions  of image or awareness of one's body among adolescents.

 

Identify Key Terms/Concepts: body awareness, body image, obesity, weight, & adolescents. 

[Alternative terms  to vary a search might be:  teenagers, binge eating, esteem, self-esteem, self image, etc..]

 

Open PsycARTICLES,  visually scan the layout, noting various search filters and options such as Methodology,  Population, etc., lots of choices!  Note the drop down, "Anywhere" broadly defaults to searching terms in the article citation and the full-text, this will return results bearing little relevance to purpose & context. There are more focused options to be found here.

  1. Enter adolescents in the first search box.  From the drop down, select "Anywhere but the text" for greater focus. It will search your term(s) in:  author names, article titles, abstract, and thesaurus descriptor tags.
  2. In row #2, enter obesity, weight respectively in the two boxes; logically, [OR] indicates either or both are acceptable key terms.  Change the drop down to choice #2 (not the text).
  3. You may click search Search now to view some results - - it's a  broad start.  You may get ideas for new keywords or to change or modify your original search topic.    HOWEVER, its advised to continue drilling down to find artlcles more focused to your original search topic! To do so you need to continue.
  4. Click "Add a row".  As in step #3,  enter body image, body awareness in the two boxes and change the drop-down to option #2, being logically consistent with other parts of this search.  [Note, you could treat both terms as exact word phrase with quote marks, but this restricts to only results using that specific phrase, it can be limiting, you may miss some results.  Perhaps a missed article whose title contains a word snippet such as:  "...perceived awareness of the male body..." ; key terms are there just not the phrase.
  5. This completes major components for this search.
  6. Lastly, apply additional filters as necessary or appropriate..  You can check "Peer Reviewed" but there is little content that is not.  If assignment requires, you can tag the filter, "Empirical Study" under Methodology. Apply date restrictions if needed.  Filter Age Group to "Adolescence" as an additional limiter check.
  7. Review your search for any changes or inconsistencies.  Otherwise click, SEARCH. 
  8. 30 results are returned for this example at this time.  Below is a result example.

 

ARTICLE EXAMPLE:   [Bold indicates key search terms]


The effect of cosmetic surgery reality tv show on adolescent girls' body image.Ashikali, Eleni-Marina; Dittmar, Helge; (et. al.). Psychology of Popular Media Culture 3.3 (Jul 2014): 141-153.


Abstract (snippet):   ...content, had an adverse effect on adolescent girls' body image, both in terms of... The Effect of Cosmetic Surgery Reality TV shows on Adolescent Girls' Body  ...to adolescent girls' body image and that there is a need for research to...