Skip to Main Content

Psychology 12: Scholarly Articles

Choosing Your Sources

You can save yourself time and effort by developing a strategic approach to your research. Once you have identified your topic, area of focus, and research question you can use the search terms you have collected to explore a variety of sources for information. Being strategic means thinking about the types of information you will need and the best places to find them. Use this page for tips and resources to formulate and implement your search strategy.

Psychology, Education, Medical, Health, and Science Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

Open Source Journals

A-Z Databases

What Is a Scholarly Article? (University of Kansas)

From the video. A scholarly article: 

  • Can also be called a peer-reviewed, academic, or refereed article.
  • Is written by an expert in the field.
  • Includes original research.
  • Has a narrow area of focus.
  • Is written for other scholars.
  • Contains a uniform structure.
  • Contains a detailed bibliography.
  • Is published in academic journals.

How to Find a Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Article

Search for scholarly articles in article databases by using the filter functions. You can also use search engines such as Google Scholar to find articles, although you won't get full text for every article you find online.

From the video. Scholarly articles contain:

  • An abstract (summary of the content)
  • Author affiliations
  • Specialized vocabulary and/or statistical tables
  • A bibliography

Searching is Strategic (University of Washington)

From the video: 

1. Use the keywords and concepts you gather from your reading in your searches. Add to your word bank as you continue your research. 

2. Combine keywords to broaden or narrow your search. If you have too many results, narrow your search by combining keywords using "AND" between them or by using the Advanced Search option. If you have too few results, you could expand your search by using "OR" when you are combining keywords.

3. Use the Advanced Search option in databases, search engines, and catalogs to narrow your search. 

3. Use the filters provided in databases to narrow your search by one or more of these :

  • Source (e.g. Peer-Reviewed Journal)
  • Document Type (e.g. article, critical essay, book review, report)
  • Publication Date