Goal: To show how to use PsycINFO and Social Science Citation Index to find articles about personality disorders.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. PSYCINFO
B. SOCIAL SCIENCE CITATION INDEX
C. OTHER LIBRARY DATABASES AND RESOURCES
D. OBTAINING COPIES OF PAPERS
E. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR FURTHER ASSISTANCE

PsycINFO is on the library's webpage of database. If you are off campus, make sure that you have set up the proxy server.
Go to the top of the webpage just mentioned to find information about the proxy server.
 
 

"Journal articles, chapters, books, dissertations, and
 reports on psychology and related fields"

 "Why select this database?

      Includes international material selected from
      periodicals written in over 25 languages since
      1887
      Includes current chapter and book coverage with
      worldwide English-language material published
      from 1987-present
      Adds over 55,000 references annually through
      monthly updates"
 

"Psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines:  anthropology  nursing  business  pharmacology  education  physiology  law
psychiatry  linguistics  sociology  medicine"

(quoted material above is from OCLC FirstSearch search interface)
 
 

(1.) The PsycINFO search screen--we will use the "Advanced" screen

(2.) PsycINFO records are broken down into fields, which include indexing. Set of tools that help you obtain more focused results than a simple "free text" search. See sample record.

(3.) In addition to using the indexing, it is important to know some basics of searching. For an overview of searching: see this Generic Searching Guide
 
 

These are all done in the "advanced" mode

Round 1

(a.) Find articles from the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.

Hint:  drag down "journal source phrase" and type in this journal title. Make sure to use "&" instead of "and".

(b.) Find journal articles in English about narcissistic personality disorder. Find articles that have an empirical slant. Then narrow the search to articles that deal with diagnosis of the disorder.

Hint:

First, do a keyword search on narcissistic personality disorder. A keyword search finds information in the descriptor, title, abstract, key phrase (identifier), and table of contents fields.

Look at the descriptors in search results ("records") that look especially relevant. A descriptor you may come across is "narcisisstic personality". Also, you may find the following in one of the records:  "Class Descrpt:   3217 Personality Disorders"

These are forms of indexing, which you can use to  "bootstrap" your way to a potentially more focused search. To do so:
drag down "classification descriptor phrase" and put in "3217 Personality Disorders".  Then drag down "descriptor phrase" and search on "narcissistic personality".

Limit the search to English language, and to journal articles.

Now run your search.

(c.)  Try adding in a content type

Do a browse on content type. Incorporate the content type for "empirical" into your search.

(d.)  Limit the search results in (c) to ones that deal with diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.

Click on the "previous searches" button. Combine the search you did in (c.) with "diagnosis" as a keyword.
 

Round 2

(a.) Find articles about academic achievement of deaf college students.

Hint: start with a keyword search using deaf and college and students. A keyword search finds information in the descriptor, title, abstract, key phrase (identifier), and table of contents fields. Look at the descriptors in search results ("records") that look especially relevant. Then "bootstrap" your way to a potentially more focused search.

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(b.) Find articles that explore the relationship between attention deficit disorder and reading disorders.

Hint: follow the same procedure as in the previous example, but starting out with different keywords.

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(c.) Find English language journal articles for 1997-2001 about juvenile delinquency among school age children (6–12 yrs).

Hint: start with a keyword search, then look at the indexing to find what descriptor term is best.  Or, alternatively, use the subject search feature to find the relevant thesaurus term.  Is there a way to limit the search results to persons in the 6-12 year age range?

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Before moving on, take a look at previous searches.

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(d.)  Find a test that looks for honesty in employees.

Hint:  See the classification codes. Use the 2228 classification code ("Occupational & Employment Testing"), conjoined with  "honesty".

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(e).  Find the various ways in which the name Smith, J. might appear in the database.

Hint: Use the author phrase browse index.
 
 

Search Tips:

• Do not use the limit to full text feature. You will not get everything that is available at Lehigh.
• Items with the "library and book" icon are in our library. However, don't assume that because an item does not have that icon, that we do not have it. Check ASA.
• Use the subject search feature.

If you want to learn more about PsycINFO or how to search it, see the following:

• About PsycINFO
• Information about PsycINFO
• Consult  Interdisciplinary Applications of PsycINFO  to get ideas about how to search a variety of topics in PsycINFO
• PsycINFO Journal Coverage List
• PsycINFO on OCLC search guides
• Guide to the Fields in our Database Records
• PsycINFO Search Tips...for Searching Historical Records
• See also help documentation on OCLC FirstSearch

Allows you to start with a document and find references that cite it. This way you can build up a bibliography of related works.
 

Access

CD: CDs are loaded on a computer behind the help desk in the lobby of Fairchild-Martindale. Years represented are -present.

Paper Version
 

Online tutorials

• "Cited Reference Searching: An Introduction"
• Sample Cited Reference Search: Social Sciences Citation Index on Compact Disc

Journals covered

Click here to see what journals are covered in Social Science Citation Index.

Note the various subject areas of coverage for psychology.
 

For more information. . .

• Help information is available at the CD station

PsycINFO and Social Science Citation Index are only two of the databases that Lehigh's libraries make available. See here for an alphabetical and subject breakdown of databases.  "Academic Index, Expanded [Infotrac]"  is an example of another database that has coverage of the psychological literature.

Check out the  Infodome  section for Psychology.

You may find material in the Encyclopedia of Psychology.

If you have used bibliographic databases to find references and abstracts for papers that look interesting, how do you actually locate the paper(s) that are of interest to you?

(1.) First, check ASA to see if Lehigh has the journal, either in paper or electronic format. Go here for information about ASA.
Journals in electronic format have a link right out of the ASA record.
Locations for paper versions of journals are listed in ASA.

(Also, check to see if there is a full text linkage from the bibliographic database you search.)

(2.) You may want to see if one of the regional libraries has the journal.

(3.) You may order the article through interlibrary loan.
 

An additional way to find papers: browse the tables of contents of recent issues or archived (bound) copies in the library, or look for relevant electronic journals browsable here by title or linked on ASA.
 
 

At any point in your research, contact Brian Simboli if you have any questions. Contact info:  x5003; brs4@lehigh.edu; office Room 633 in Fairchild-Martindale Library.