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Santa Clara UniversityUniversity Library

CPSY 381: Health Psychology (Larson)

Research Tips

Brainstorming Keywords

As you think about your topic, work to distill your ideas into keywords. When developing keywords, you don't need to include causal relationship words (e.g. cause, impact, relationship).

As you think about your topic, you can make it more specific by considering any of the following facets:

  • Age
  • Assessment or testing
  • Educational or treatment context
  • Identity or demographic characteristics
  • Intervention
  • Geographic location
  • Research method(s)
  • Therapeutic or theoretical approach

Using Subject Terms

Articles in library databases are tagged with subject terms. Using subject terms as part of your search strategy can take the guesswork out of keyword searching.

You can discover subject terms as you search, by looking for them under the article title in your results list, or above the abstract in an article record page.

Example of "Participatory Research" subject term under a search result

Example of "Participatory Research" subject term on an article record page

You can also look up subject terms in a database's thesaurus. Here's a video explaining how to search for subject terms in EBSCO databases.

Finally, you can search using subject terms by clicking on them, or changing your search field to subject terms.

Screenshot showing how to change the drop-down menu next to an EBSCO search bar to DE Subject (Exact) to search for a subject term

Searching Strategically with Boolean Logic

Boolean operators are terms you can use to narrow or broaden your search in a database, library catalog, or a search engine like Google. The three basic operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.  

Why use them?

  • To focus a search when you are using multiple terms 
  • To include synonyms for your search terms in order to find all variations  
  • To exclude terms not relevant to your search

When using Boolean logic to create a search strategy, use double quotation marks (" ") when you are searching for a phrase (words you'd like to keep together).


Using AND

Use the operator "AND" in a search to: 

  • Narrow your results 
  • Tell the database that ALL the terms must be present in the search results 

Example: california AND "secondary education"


Using OR

Use the operator OR to: 

  • Broaden your search by telling the database that ANY of the terms can be present in your results 
  • To include synonyms or related concepts for your search terms 

Example: "high school" OR "secondary education"


Using NOT

Use the operator NOT to: 

  • Narrow your results  
  • Exclude specific words or concepts from your search results 

Example: student AND "mental health" NOT anxiety


Nesting Operators
  • Databases usually default to AND as the primary operator and connect concepts tied together with AND first. You can use parentheses ( ) to indicate to the database how you want your terms to be connected.  
  • You can put operators together like an algebra equation.

Example: ("mental health" OR anxiety OR depression) AND ("high school" OR secondary) AND student

Using A Single Article to Find More

"Citation chaining" refers to the process of using sources to find more sources. There are two approaches -- forward and backward chaining.

1) Backward chaining

This approach uses one relevant source, or citation, to find more relevant sources on a topic by investigating who published on that particular topic before it was published. You can do this by scanning the works cited list at the end of an article and/or close-reading its literature review section.

2) Forward chaining

Some databases of scholarly articles will include a "cited by" feature, to let you know who referenced that particular article after it was published. Google Scholar does a fantastic job of this -- it's one of the ways you can maximize Google Scholar.

Search for the title of an article, and click the "Cited by..." button underneath it.

Screenshot of a Google Scholar article result with the "Cited by" link highlighted

Clicking the "Cited by" link will bring up a set of results of citing literature, which you can do another search within. Check the box next to "Search within citing articles" and then enter your search terms in the bar above.

Screenshot of a Google Scholar article result with the "Search citing articles" box highlighted.

Reading Academic Literature

Brush up on the parts of scholarly articles using this interactive tutorial from NC State University Libraries.

Screenshot of linked tutorial (anatomy of a scholarly article)

Learn strategies for structural reading of scholarly articles in this guide from ICPSR.

Screenshot of linked PDF (reading a social science journal article)

 
Organizing Your Sources

The templates below are options for organizing your own research. If you want to use them, please make a copy before adapting or reusing.

 
Citation Managers

If you plan to develop a research library to support your future clinical practice, EndNote or Zotero could be useful tools to consider, as they allow easy organization, sharing, and use of materials. It's worth trying one or both to see which works best for you!

Zotero

Zotero is a free tool that allows you to save and organize all the sources you find. It's a an example of a citation manager that allows you to build a personal library of citations. 

Using Zotero you can:

  • Save and organize sources
  • Create in-text citations in Word and Google Docs
  • Sync your references for online access on any device
  • Create a bibliography with a single click

You can learn more and download Zotero at Zotero.org. Want to know more or need help? Contact the Education Librarian!

Zotero also has a free citation generator called ZoteroBib, which can help you with citations for a research project even if you don't want to create a full library.

EndNote

EndNote is another popular citation manager. The full version of this powerful product costs approximately $275, or you can purchase a student edition for around $150.

EndNote Web is a free, less powerful version of EndNote that provides critical and helpful features.

 

Citing Articles in APA

To cite a journal article, you'll need the following information:
 

  • Author's name(s) - last name first followed by first initial(s)
  • Year of publication - in parentheses
  • Title of article - first word, proper nouns, and word after a colon are capitalized
  • Title of publication - all words in italics
  • Volume number - in italics
  • Issue number - no italics
  • Page numbers - without p. or the word "page" in front
  • DOI, when available - ask a librarian if you need help finding this


Here's an example:
 

Walters, J. E., & Wallis, D. (2021). Characteristics and organizational capacity of nonprofits in rural, persistently poor Southern counties in the United States. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 7(3), 390-416. https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.7.3.390-416

Citing Other Sources

APAStyle.org is the most reliable place online to get information about how to cite in this style, including help with in-text citations and your reference list, including lots of example citations for various types of sources.

You can also consult the APA Style Manual from the SCU Library.

Using Databases to Generate Citations

Many library databases will generate citations for you. While the still need proofreading, they can save you some steps in building your bibliography.

Example of the "Cite" button in an EBSCO database, which pulled up a citation in APA 7 style.