1. Accessing and searching for journals and wider material
By Paul Biggs Librarian for Psychology, Sport & Exercise, Biology & Biomedical Sciences and Education
Title Slide

2. In This Session We Will Cover
Define what a journal is and differentiate between journal titles and articles
Introduce electronic databases
Tips when searching and identifying keywords
Using Summon to search for journal articles
Look at databases for your subject area
How to search for journal titles
Using Google Scholar to search for journal articles
Access newspapers
Searching for academic material on the internet using Google Advanced search
What we will cover in this session

3. Journals
Journals like magazines, newspapers and annual reports are in a group of publications known as serials or periodicals. This is a term used to describe publications that are issued at regular intervals, either daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. You will need to carry out further reading as your studies progress.
Why Use Journals?
Timely – journals are published more often than books, as a result you will find up-to-date information in recent journals
Authoritative – articles are written by experts and in peer reviewed journals the articles are screened by a ‘jury’ of other experts before they are published

4. Journals
Journals can be divided into 3 types:
Scholarly: written reports on research, articles are written by researchers or subject experts, articles are peer reviewed and include references and bibliographies
Trade and professional : Articles relate to an industry or profession, contain information about  products or services, cover current issues affecting an industry or profession  
Popular magazines: Written to entertain, have a glossy appearance & photographs, information is reported second or third hand by freelance reporters     

5. Electronic Databases
We have 100’s of databases at the university. These databases house journal titles. Inside these titles you will find articles. Just think of databases as giant electronic shelves. All you have to do is enter the correct keywords to locate your journal article! Summon can help you get what you want from these databases!

6. Tips when searching for journal articles using our E-Resources
Think about your assignment question. Always try and identify keywords. Keywords can be taken from class literature and background reading as well!
You can also use a Thesaurus to identify synonyms for keywords this will widen your search for example some synonyms for behaviour are conduct, actions, bearing, attitude, manner, manners etc…A lot of the Psychology & health databases contain a thesaurus
It can be a good idea to have some keywords noted on a pad before you start to search the resources. You can also speak to us if you need further help familiarising yourself with all of our eResources
Use these keywords to search for learning materials within our collections

7. Search Tips Techniques
Use the * symbol to find words starting with a common stem. The * is a TRUNCATION symbol.
For example, Smok* will find Smoke, Smoking, Smokers etc..
Or Diabet* Diabetes, Diabetic, Diabetics etc..
You can also use the ? As a wildcard. For example if you search for behavio?r this will search for behaviour and behavior (the American spelling)
AND, OR & NOT are used to combine search terms…
AND will find all search terms (probably the best to use as it narrows your searches)
OR will find one or another or both
NOT will exclude terms

8. Search Tips Techniques Continued
If you are looking for a particular phrase just typing it into a search box on a database may not give you the exact results you are looking for. However, if you use quotation marks “” you will get more exact hits as it searches for the phrase side by side
For example, “coronary heart disease”
“alcohol abuse”
“Behavioural Strategies”

9. Use Summon to search around a topic
If you are searching around a particular topic Summon can be a useful tool to use.
Summon also suggests searches for you and you can filter your searches. Access Summon using the search box via
Access the article by selecting Full Text Online

10. Use The limiters to narrow your searches
You can limit your search looking for Scholarly & Peer Reviewed material. Always make sure Full Text is selected as well
You can also narrow your search by discipline
Don’t forget to also narrow your search by date! You might not want out of date material?

11. Summon can show you an abstract
If you select preview just below the article on this will provide you with an abstract

12. Summon can help you with additional keywords
Summon will also provide you with additional keywords
You can also add results to a folder and you can article results to your own address

13. Summon will show you related articles
Summon will also suggest similar articles for you. Just select the related articles button

14. Summon can help you with APA
Summon can also help you with APA. It can suggest how a source would look in APA format
Just select the cite this for me button then select APA

15. Databases for your Subject Area
There are a number of databases for your specific subject area and these are listed via the finding articles tab
Access the guides & podcasts tab to see detailed written & video guides on Psychology databases

16. Using psycinfo and psycarticles
PsycInfo and PsycArticles will be useful databases for you
They are provided by a database provider called EBSCO
We have a number of detailed videos on how to use these resources under the guides and podcasts tab on your subject resource page
Select the guides and podcasts tab or access via

17. Search directly for journal titles
You can search directly for individual eJournal titles. Access Your Subject Resource page via

18. Print journals in the library
We do also have print journals in the library. You need to use the library catalogue to search for them via

19. You can use Google Scholar
You can use Google Scholar to search for journal articles
Google Scholar is useful as it links to our collections and also has free Open Access materials
It is worth using Scholar as a secondary resource after you have searched our own online resources
If you are using Scholar Off Campus you will need to configure it so you can search our collections to find out how to do this visit

20. Newspapers
We have a database called European Newsstream where you are able to access newspaper articles. Access it via the finding articles tab on the Subject Resource page
Newspapers

21. Searching for information on the Web
You might need to use Google to search for information on the Internet. When using Google I would suggest using the Advanced Search Tool. This allows you to enter keywords and search specific Web Domains such as .gov.uk .ac.uk or .org.uk
You can also specify the last time a document has been updated so you know that you are getting up to date material.
Access the advanced search on Google here