How to find documents for your formative assessments? (Transforming your topic into a search strategy, using a bibliographic database such as PsycINFO).

1. by Aurelie Gandour

2. …using bibliographic databases…

3. What are you looking for?
• Your name
• The topic you’ve chosen
Tell me:

4. Bibliographic Databases
WHAT ARE THEY?
A list of sources of information
like:
Journals, Articles, Books...
These information sources are
shown as records.
Each record contains everything
you need to know about the
information source.
Sometimes you only have the
record.
Sometimes you can directly access
the article in Full Text.

5. Bibliographic Databases
HOW TO ACCESS THEM?
Library website > databases
Look them all up to decide
on the ones you should
use!

6. Doing a Literature Search

7. Write down your topic
AN EXAMPLE:
Parents’ experience of receiving
an autism diagnosis for their child.

8. Identify important keywords
AN EXAMPLE:
Parents’ experience of receiving
an autism diagnosis for their child.

9. Find variations on keywords
You should think of:
• synonyms,
• plurals,
• verbs / nouns,
• US spelling…

10. Find variations on keywords
Parents
Parent
Parenting
Parental attitude
Autism
Autistic spectrum
Aspergers syndrome
Diagnosis
Diagnostic process
Child
Children
Childhood

11. Now, it’s time to search!
When searching, it’s
best to start very
large and to narrow
down step by step…

12. First, a useful tool
BOOLEAN
OPERATORS
Link!

13. Know you know what you want:
Parents
Parent
Parenting
Parental attitude
Autism
Autistic spectrum
Aspergers syndrome
Diagnosis
Diagnostic
process
Child
Children
Childhood
OR
OR
OR OR
OR
OR
OR
OR
AND
AND
AND

14. Let’s search each group

15. Group 1
Parents
Parent
Parenting
Parental attitude
Parent*
* = truncation symbol

16. Mind where you put the *!
Psychia*
Psychiatry
Psychiatric
Psychiatrist

17. Mind where you put the *!
Psych*
Psychosis
Psychotic
Psychedelic
Psychology
Psychologist
Psychological
Psychopathy
Psychosomatic
Psychotherapy
Psychopathology
Psychoanalysis
Psychiatry
Psychiatric
Psychiatrist
Psyche, etc.

18. Group 2
Autism
Autistic spectrum
Aspergers syndrome
Autis* OR
Aspergers

19. Group 3
Diagnosis
Diagnostic process
Diagnos*

20. Group 4
Child
Children
Childhood
Characteristic of
the group
studied
Limiters

21. Link it!
Parent* Autis* OR Diagnos*
Aspergers AND AND

22. Too many results? Limit!
USEFUL LIMITERS:
• Linked full-text
• Publication year
• Age
• Gender
• Methodology
• Tests &
Measures

23. Got something good? Save it!

24. Your EBSCOhost account
TO SAVE:
• Your searches
• Your references

25. Follow the thread…
YOU SHOULD CHECK
• Papers from the
same author
• Papers in the
same journal
• This paper’s
bibliography
• Papers that
reference this
paper in their
bibliography

26. Write down your references
• Copy it directly
from the record!
• You need to
chose the
“Harvard Style”

27. Ready? Go!
Good luck with
your assessment!

28. Attributions for the pictures used
in this presentation
Slide 1: Photo by fung.leo - Creative Commons Attribution License
Slide 3: Photo by -Snugg- - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License
Slide 5: Photo by shindoverse - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
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