Gaia Scerif

Different search engines

General: How do I search for information about a vast topic about which I know very little?

- Think of keywords: to find them, go back to the introductory lecture, think of the precise title of your experiment (e.g., are you manipulating natural images? Are you interested in the effects of stimulus exposure duration on later recognition memory?); search synonyms.

- Find the name of key authors in the area (refer to textbooks, they will cite classical studies and researchers in the field). They are the most likely to have published good review papers that you can use as a good starting point to read around the topic. Use them to find: important experimental papers; further ideas on keywords.

- Refine your searches using all the information above.

Multiple search engines are available:

· Free access:

- Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

Advantages: free access to multiple journals, direct links to many journal articles are available.

Disadvantage: Mostly medical and neuroscience journals, so some more specific titles in psychology are not available.

- ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com/

Advantages: free access to a large database of journals

Disadvantages: it will only give information on journals that are accessible through SD.

- Some journals offer free access to sample issues

· Athens based (ask the Librarians for a password):

1. Access the library portal: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/is/
2. Access the E-Library Gateway: http://metalib.nottingham.ac.uk/V
3. Here you will need your Novell password (University account) to access the system

Searching for Resources:

This page allows you to access a number of very powerful engines, to access each of them individually, click on the arrow by the name of the engine.

- Web of Science: http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/

1. Login with your Athens password
2. For lit searches, click on ISI web of Science
3. A number of search options:

· Full search allows access to :

· General search:

Allows you to search by topic (keyword), author (surname or surname and initials). (you must click “search” to use this option)

Useful tips: think of keywords, use the wildcard *, mark and submit items to a marked list that you can e-mail to yourself and/or print out..

Advantages: as well as your general searches, you can do citation searches (i.e., search for an article and ask who cited it since it was published; this may be very useful if you have found a classical paper on a topic and want an update of more recent papers on the same topic). More recently, links have been added to the

Disadvantages: it lists articles only, so if you are interested in book chapters you’ll have to search elsewhere.

- PsychLit / PsychInfo: http://arc.uk.ovid.com/webspirs/start.ws?customer=not

1. Select PsychInfo
2. Select years that are of interest (or all)
3. Start searching
4. Type a term of phrase (keyword, author name, etc.)
5. Mark items again

Advantages: Allows very comprehensive reviews over selected age ranges, it searches for articles, chapters and book titles

More information in workshops are organised by the Librarians.