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Psychology

Where to find Journal Articles, Books, ebooks and more in the discipline of Psychology at the Angus L. Macdonald Library

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Searching for Scholarly Articles in Psychology

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All Journals - Psychology

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What to search, anyway?

The keywords you use can have a profound impact on the results of your research. Using the “right” words will speed up the research process, while the “wrong” words can bring to it to a halt.

Before you can begin searching for information, you need to identify keywords related to your topic. Key terminology can be easily be found by scanning:

If you are still struggling:

  • Use a thesaurus to identify synonyms
  • Find pictures related to your topic, then describe them
  • Brainstorm keywords with a librarian, your instructor, or a friend

Tips for Identifiying Scholarly Journals

Also known as scholarly, refereed, or peer-reviewed journals.

Appearance: Generally have a sober, serious look. May contain graphs and charts, but few glossy pages or photographs. Use scholarly language with vocabulary specific to their profession or field.

Audience: Written for academics and professionals.

Author/Authority: Articles written by researchers or scholars in the field who report the results of original research.

Citations: Articles include footnotes and a list of citations at the end of the article.

Content: Includes scholarly research for a particular profession or industry. Articles usually contain an abstract, methodology, discussion, charts or tables, results, conclusions, and references.

Frequency: Usually published bimonthly or quarterly.

 

APA Citation Style

Format:  (Author Last Name, Year of Publication)

Types of In-Text Citations
Parenthetical Narrative 
The author's last name and publication date, separated by a comma, appear in parentheses.
 The author's last name appears in running text, and the date appears in parentheses immediately after the author's name. 
A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence. The author's name can me included in the sentence in any place it make sense. 

Example: 

Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public's perception of expert consensus on an issue (Koehler, 2016).

Example: 

Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.

 

Journal Articles with a DOI: 

Format: 

  • Write the author names in the order they appear on the article. Use only their first and second initial, if available. Do not spell out their first name.
  • Use sentence case for the article title, ie) only the first word of the title and subtitle are capitalized. 
    • Unless the title contains a proper noun or an acronym, (ie - Canada or ADHD), in which case those should be capitalized.
  • Double-space all entries and include a hanging indent. 
  • Alphabetize all reference list entries. 

Journal Article Citation Style - APA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Use the ruler available in your Word Processor to create the hanging indent necessary for your Reference List. 
    • If the ruler is not visible automatically, you may have to select it under the "View" tab in Microsoft Word (or equivalent). 
  • Continue with the page numeration from your assignment, but begin your reference list on a new page. 
  • Entitle this page "References" in bold font, regular 12 pt size. 
  • Each reference list entry needs to correspond to an in-text citation and vice-versa. 

 

I always recommend that students go straight to the source when looking for guidance on the APA Citation Style. Their website, has many instructional handouts available. We also have print copies of the APA Manual available at the Angus L. Macdonald library for consultation. 

Libkey Nomad

LibKey Nomad browser extension gives you fast, one-click access to scholarly articles.

How to Install

1) Go to: https://thirdiron.com/downloadnomad/

2) It will prompt you to select a compatible internet browser

3) The page will jump to your extensions page, select to add to your browser

4) Click the Add Extension button

5) On your browser's extension page, ensure that LibKey Nomad is turned on

6) LibKey Nomad is now active and will automatically scan for full text articles