This document provides an overview of a literature search lab focusing on searching for sources on the topic of drug addiction treatments for offenders. It discusses defining the research question, planning search strategies and keywords, and searching specific databases like Google Scholar, Summon, PsycINFO, and Web of Knowledge. It also covers evaluating search results and finding "grey literature" sources like government and organizational reports. The goal is for students to practice literature searches on this topic and complete a log book with bibliographic references.

1. PSY2005
Lab Week 10: Literature Searching
1

2. Aims & Outcomes
 Provide an overview of a literature search
 Defining your research question and search strategy
 Introduction to database searching
Summon
Google Scholar
Web of Knowledge
Psycinfo
Grey Literature
 In pairs complete a log book on a topic with 5
bibliographic references during the session
2

3. Defining the research question
 Search topic: Turning your search in to a series of questions
 What is my topic?
 Keywords = crime, drug addiction and treatments
 What question do I need to answer? What is it asking me to do?
 Drug addiction treatments for offenders
 What research has been conducted on the use of therapy for
offenders who take drugs?
 What type of information will best answer the question? Journal
articles? Statistics? Official reports?
 Journal articles and official reports
 Which areas of the world are you interested in?
 Western Europe/USA/Australia/developing world etc…
 Are you interested in a particular population or patient group?
 Offenders with drug problems
 How far back in time can you search before the information
becomes irrelevant?
 1990
3

4. Planning your search …. 1
 Boring but WORTH IT!
 Pick out your concepts and separate them
 drugs, addiction, therapy, offenders, etc
 Think of other words that are similar to your key
words but represent the same concepts
 Illegal drugs, Counselling, criminals, programmes
(programs)
 Think of narrower words that fit into your terms to
hone your search if you’re getting too much
information
4

5. Planning your search ... 2
 Search strategies
 Systematic – you try to find all relevant material – consider what type of
assessment you are doing and how big it is (how many words) and how big
the topic is (it may be impossible if your topic is too general!)
 Retrospective – you find the most recent material and work backwards
 Citation – you follow leads from useful articles, books and reading lists
 Targeted – you restrict your topic and focus in on a narrow area of the
literature
NOTE you can often build an answer to a very general question like this
(pick a few select aspects which cover the scope of the large topic you are
addressing and this will make your life easier)
 For e.g. Effect on child development of postnatal depression
- Could look at 1 article from a few key age groups and answer your
question that way.
 Can you think of how we could target in our search on addiction and
offenders?
5

6. Useful clues/things to pick up on
 Read and repeat the process
 Look for key words in the relevant literature
 Literature searching is a cycle – you will often need to improve your
search / play around with a few different searches
 Search strategies
 Citation – you follow leads from useful articles, books and reading
lists
 Expanding your keyword base as you go along – keep an eye out for
other recurring synonyms/alternative keywords in your search
results
 Start big – you may have to get smaller and more specific if you don’t
want to look through hundreds of results!
 Limiting the search strategy
 e.g. randomized trials; publication date; empirical study; English
6 language; type of drug; type of offender (race/age/crime)

7. Useful clues/things to pick up on
 Watch out for spellings US/UK
behavior / behaviour
Counselor / counselling
 Truncate your term*
Offend* will find offending, offender, offenders
Counsel* will find
counselling, counsellor, counsellors
 Keep phrases together with speech marks
“substance abuse”
7

8. Exercise 1 - Keywords
• On the sheet .... (ignore the arrows for now)
• List synonyms (alternative keywords) and narrower terms
for your basic search terms
• This will enable you to run bigger searches or lots of little
searches and find more results
Crime Drug addiction Treatment
8

9. Synonyms
Crime Drug addiction Treatment
Criminal* “Substance abuse” Therapy
Offender* “Illicit drugs” Counsel*
Convict* “Illegal drugs” Program*
“Criminal population”
Inmate*
“Criminal justice system”
Narrower Terms
Crime Drug addiction Treatment
“Youth offenders” Opiates “Talk therapy”
“Repeat offenders” “Psychotropic drugs” “Behavioural therapy”
“First time offenders” “Prescription drugs” Medicat*
“Violent offenders” Specific drug names ... “Family therapy”
Prozac cannabis, crack
cocaine, heroin etc
9 HMP “residential therapy”

10. Google Scholar
 Important – did you know you can set Google Scholar
to flag up everything you have paid access to through
the University?
 Please follow along and personalise your GS
 Google Scholar > settings
10

11. Personalising Google Scholar ...
• Click library links on the left
hand side
• Search ‘middlesex
university’ and select
‘Middlesex University – Full
Text @ Middlesex’
11

12. Searching Google Scholar ...
• Search ‘crime drug addiction treatment’
• Is there anything you notice about the results?
12

13. Searching Google Scholar ...
 One result is a citation – there’s no file but it looks
very relevant and I want to know a bit more
 Click on ‘Cite’ and copy and paste the full citation into
Google  The top three results are
from the organisational
website .org – should be
authoritative
 I can download the file,
and the follow up report
 Several useful sections on
treatment
13

14. Exercise 2 - Google Scholar
 Work in pairs
 Have a play!
 Put your main keywords in and see what you get
 Then try alternative or narrower keywords and
compare the relevance and ‘usefulness’ of what you
find
 Find 1 full text article you think useful for this question
and note it in your log book in your pairs
 Grab your tutor or I for help
14

15. Summon
 Cross searches everything the University has access to through
the library – books, ebooks, journals, conference
proceedings, newspapers etc
 Simple search function
 But limited in that you can’t build an advanced search
 Cross searching all subjects so you need to be aware of terms
that recur in other subject areas ie; development is not a useful
search term because it has so many applications!
Would need to add ‘psychology’ or ‘cognitive’ etc
REMEMBER
Simple search often = longer looking through results
More sophisticated search = a little longer to construct your
search but results should be more specific and relevant
15

16. Getting into the databases....
REMEMBER!
Always use MyUniHub
as a gateway to library
resources
16

17. 17

18. 18

19. 19

20. Searching Summon ....
 May need to add psychology or other qualifying keywords
 Limits are on the left hand side, full text online
only, date, language, resource type ......
 Will get a variety of resources in one go – the major strength of
Summon
 If it’s an ebook and you’re not sure why the search picked it up
have a look at the contents – probably a relevant chapter
 Some results not relevant – the downside of searching so many
subject resources in one go.
So need to have a good look through the first few pages
20

21. Exercise 3 – Summon
 Work in the same pairs
 Have a play!
 Put your main keywords in and see what you get
 Then try alternative or narrower keywords and
compare the relevance and ‘usefulness’ of what you
find
 Find 1 reference for an item (book, journal, newspaper
article) you think useful for this question and note it in
your log book in your pairs
 Grab your tutor or I for help
21

22. PsycInfo
 Specific psychology database - subject specific information
unlike other databases like Summon (searches all subjects)
or Web of Knowledge (search broadly across sciences or
social sciences)
 Articles are tagged with psychology subject headings when
indexed – useful for searching
 Not completely full text but can limit results to full text
 Run by APA
 Worth noting US bias – if being comprehensive in search
would have to take this into account and use other
resources as well
22

23. Getting into the databases....
REMEMBER!
Always use MyUniHub
as a gateway to library
resources
23

24. 24

25. 25

27. • Select Psycinfo
• You can select PsycARTICLES Full Text but you will get far fewer results – to start it’s
best to search PsycInfo and then limit within that to full text if you get enough results
27

28. • ALWAYS use advanced search – this allows you to combine your different concepts
with ‘AND’ or ‘OR’
• And leave ‘Map subject term heading’ ticked – this gives you a useful way of
accessing records tagged as being in a subject area and also finding the most common
‘official’ term used for your topic in journal articles
28

29. • Choose any suitable subject headings
• Narrow your scope IF it’s useful
• Or keep your words as a free keyword search as you
entered them
29

30. • Enter all your synonyms for the first concept – ONE BY ONE
• If you have them one separate lines you can combine them
• And also take out things you think aren't working without
messing up your search
30

31. • You now need to combine your synonyms with ‘OR’ to get everything under
one topic referred to by different names
31

32. First concept
Second concept
Third concept
• Now you have three results on your list which represent each concept with a
variety of words
6, 9 and 13
• You need to combine these to find results on your question - what do we
32 combine these with?

33. Results!
 You need to have a look and evaluate how relevant the
results on the first few pages are
 You're using an academic journal database so you don't
need to worry too much about authority but you do need
to think about
Currency Relevance Objectivity
 Now you have results you can limit to full text or limit to a
time frame on the left hand side menu
33

34. Exercise 4 – PsycInfo
 Work in the same pairs
 Have a look at these results and see if you can find a useful
reference – limit the search by date or another element if
you want
 Now try and do a similar search combining the narrower
more specific keywords we came up with (Slide 9 or your
worksheets)
 Example = ‘repeat offenders’ AND ‘drug addiction’ AND
‘behavioural therapy’
 REMEMBER to select any relevant subject headings
 REMEMBER alternative UK/US spellings!
 Find 1 reference for an item (book, journal, newspaper
article) you think useful for this question and note it in
your log book in your pairs
 Grab your tutor or I for help
34

35. Social Sciences Citation Index
 Social Sciences
 Will take you to the Web of Knowledge platform
 On here you can also select Sciences Citation Index if
you want to search across both
35

36. Social Sciences Citation Index
 Slightly different search screen
 Example search
 Works in a similar way but you should group your concept
terms in each box and type ‘OR’ between them (most
36 straightforward way)

37. Exercise 5 - SSCI
 Work in the same pairs
 Search your 3 concept terms in the 3 boxes
 Make sure the drop down boxes on the left say ‘AND’
so the three concepts combine to find things about
crime AND drugs AND treatment
 REMEMBER alternative UK/US spellings!
 Can limit by date if you think recent information is
best
 Find 1 reference for an item (book, journal, newspaper
article) you think useful for this question and note it in
your log book in your pairs
 Grab your tutor or I for help
37

38. Getting Full text of journal articles
 If you’re lucky!
 It will be available as a PDF on the database (look for
PDF symbol)
 If you’re not lucky!
 Double check the library catalogue by copying journal
name into the ‘journal search’. If we have it there’ll be a
record and a link.
 Go to Google Scholar and look for PDF signs
 Go to Author’s website/institution’s repository, often
they have left a pre publisher version
 Order a copy via the inter-library loan (£3.00)
http://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/study/library/resources/ill/inde
38
x.aspx

39. Evaluating what you’ve found
Key questions
Is it what you need and is it trustworthy?
What criteria would you use to assess the
relevance and quality of the information?

40.  Currency How old is this information? When was it
last updated? Is this important for the assignment?
 Authority Who is the author? Site creator,
organisation, scholarly / peer reviewed journals etc?
 Intent What is the purpose of the website /
information? e.g. financial gain, academic
 Relevance Is this what I need? Will it answer my
question? Is it at the right level?
 Objectivity Balanced view? Opposing views
represented? References?

41. Finding ‘Grey Literature’
Government, organisational reports
and conference proceedings
41

42. Researching the ‘grey literature’
 What is grey literature?
 “information produced on all levels of
government, academia, business and industry in
electronic and print formats not controlled by
commercial publishing.”*
 Example sources: Government reports; theses and
dissertations; technical reports; conference
proceedings; Newsletters; clinical trials.
 Emerging sources: e-prints; preprints; blogs; wiki-
articles; databases of ongoing research; electronic and
social networks
 For dissertations you can check the MDX library or
another Central London university library catalogue
42 (you may be able to access depending on policy)

43. Grey literature – starting with Google –
finding the gateway or organisation
 Do you really need it?
What is your assignment? What does it ask you to do? How many
resources are you using overall? What is the word count?
 Google your keywords
 Look for a well known organisation/charity/health/education
institution
 Particularly look for web addresses .gov and .org
 Can search for the report subject i.e. Crime, drug addiction and
treatment
 OR you can search for organisations in that area i.e.;
government/research/charity organisations around drug abuse.
43 Find the organisations website and search on there

44. Example Google search for Grey Lit
IGNORE the yellow box
– people have paid to
be there!
• I have phrased the keywords slightly differently as it’s not a journal database and I
can’t put in alternative terms together, I instead need to do a few quick searches with
44
different synonyms and see what I get.

45. Tips for finding ‘grey literature’
 Searching techniques
 Small and obscure libraries; Googling (google and scholar); contacting
experts in the field; blogsearch, podsearch; scanning reference lists (e.g.
Academics CV’s)
 Getting access – if the report is not available for free on the site you’re
on, Google away and see if you can find a PDF – just look closely to check
it’s the real/right/up to date document
 Signs of authenticity = logo, full title, CORRECT DATE, full document
 DO NOT USE A HTML TEXT FILE VERSION of an official report – text may
have been altered in some way (an official webpage is fine but don’t
download and use word docs for this )
 When you get your results – the report may be huge – you probably don’t
need to read the whole thing!
Find the relevant section OR master the art of skimming !
45

46. Grey lit – gateway sources
 www.greylit.org
 http://www.drugscope.org.uk/
 http://www.nih.gov/
 http://www.who.int/en/ (WHO bulletin is on here and
searchable)
 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/research-
statistics/publications/home-office-research-reports/
 http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/
 http://www.unesco.org/new/en/
 http://www.bps.org.uk/
 http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/
 http://www.greynet.org/greysourceindex.html
 I will add these links to the Psychology library subject guide -
46 soon!

47. Exercise 6 – Grey Literature
 Work in the same pairs
 Search your basic concept terms in Google or one of
the websites provided (use general search box or go to
relevant section of website) and see if you can find a
report or conference paper that’s relevant
 REMEMBER alternative UK/US spellings!
 Use CAIRO slide (next slide) to evaluate what you find
and decide if it’s ok to use (especially if using Google)
 Find 1 reference for an item (book, journal, newspaper
article) you think useful for this question and note it in
your log book in your pairs
 Grab your tutor or I for help
47

48.  Currency How old is this information? When was it
last updated? Is this important for the assignment?
 Authority Who is the author? Site creator,
organisation, scholarly / peer reviewed journals etc?
 Intent What is the purpose of the website /
information? e.g. financial gain, academic
 Relevance Is this what I need? Will it answer my
question? Is it at the right level?
 Objectivity Balanced view? Opposing views
represented? References?

49. Need help?
 Librarians in the Specialist Zone (1st floor)
11-3 Monday - Friday
 Ask a Librarian http://askalibrarian.mdx.ac.uk/
 Psychology Library Subject Guide - Viv’s contact
details and this and other power points/helpsheets
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/psy