Psychology: Finding scholarly journal articles
PsycARTICLES
Explore the PsycArticles Database
Search this databases for Scholarly articles in the field of psychology.
- PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
(Also known as APA PsycARTICLES).(Ebsco) Periodical database of peer-reviewed, scholarly, and scientific articles in psychology.
Video Tutorial
- PsycARTICLES video tutorial (2020)Click the link to watch this video for an introduction to searching PsycARTICLES
Please note that the interface for PsycARTICLES changed in January 2025, so it will look different than in the video tutorial. The publisher is still making a few changes, but a new video tutorial will be recorded as soon as that is complete. In the meantime, please see the following handout with step-by-step instructions with screenshots for how to search the new interface.
Additional library databases useful for Psychology topoics
Searching the library's databases
Academic Search Complete, featured above, is only one of several databases where you can find scholarly articles.
Access others through the list of databases available under the All Databases tab. We suggest you try starting with these multidisciplinary databases to locate scholarly articles. Remember to check the filter to limit to Scholarly/Academic articles, and, if needed, Peer-Reviewed (often on the left-hand side or in the Advanced Search option).
- Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection This link opens in a new window
(Ebsco) More than 500 full-text journals, covering the fields of psychology, behavioral sciences and related disciplines. - Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
(Ebsco) Periodical database. This multi-disciplinary database covers most disciplines taught at TCC. Most articles are scholarly. - Ethnic Diversity Source This link opens in a new window
(Ebsco) Covers the culture, traditions, social treatment, and lived experiences of ethnic groups in the United States, with peer-reviewed journals, magazines, e-books, biographies, and primary source documents. - JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text of a range of academic journal articles and primary sources. TCC's collection includes: "Archival Journal / Primary Source Collections." Good coverage of history, sociology, anthropology, literature, and economics. All images from Artstor are now on JSTOR! - ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
A full-text database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and 11,000 books, including reference works. Includes social science journals, which includes psychology. (Tip: After searching for your topic, choose the "Refine by subscribed journals" feature on the results page to view the items you can access free of charge because you are a TCC student.)
Work with the results in PsycARTICLES
Searching in PsycArticles
Click through the following tabs in this box to learn more about searching in this database.
Keyword searches
When searching the databases for articles, do not type in whole sentences, phrases, or questions. Instead, search by combining unique terms that capture the heart of your topic.
- Example: Depression AND Adolescents
Think of other terms that can be used to describe the event you are researching and try those also, such as Depression, Mental Illness, PTSD, Stress; Adolescents, Teens, Youth.
Special search tools
Use the asterisk * to truncate words and widen your search.
- Example: Adolescen* will search for Adolescent, Adolescents, and Adolescence.
Use quotation marks to keep phrases together
- Example: "Mental Illness"
(click on image to enlarge)
Set Your Limiters
In the search shown in the image above, you can see that the terms depression AND adolescent are added to the search. And the search filters selected are as follows:
- Full-Text - by checking this box, you ensure that the results are only articles that you can immediate access (as opposed to those that you can see a record for but need to request through interlibrary loan)
- Peer-reviewed - If you're required to limit to scholarly articles that have undergone the additional peer-reviewed process, check this option.
- By date
Viewing your results
The results shown in the image below are for the search in the previous tab: Depression AND adolescen*
- You can see that the terms searched appear in bold text in the results list.
- You can also see the black, bold font that appears below the titles, the Subject headings that the database uses to organize and retrieve articles.
(click in image to enlarge)
Note that on the left-hand side of the screen, you can see many of the same filters that appear on the initial search page (or when you click on the "Advanced Search" option to get to that page). Sometimes advanced filters are needed, but often, the option to limit to Full-Text, Peer-Review, and scholarly/academic articles appears on the left.
Viewing the abstract
When you see an article of interest, you can hover the cursor over the magnifying glass to the right of the article title to quickly view the abstract of the article and see if the contents are relevant to your search as shown in the image below.
(click on image to enlarge)
Note also that within the abstract view, you can often see more about the method in which the author/s carried out their study, such as the number of participants the study had (if appliable). By clicking on the title of the article, and then viewing the original PDF, you can see the Methods section of an original research article.
Accessing the full-text of an article
You can learn more about an article by clicking on the title. On the article record, you will see the following elements, as featured in the screenshot below:
- Additional info about the article and the larger publication it is from. Here is where you can often click on the hyperlinked titled of the publication to learn more about it, such as what kind of source it is (academic journal, newspaper, magazine, etc), or whether it's a peer-reviewed publication (which you can also filter in your initial results).
- Additional info about the author/authors. Often there will be credentials or hyperlinked names that you can click on to view additional articles the author's have written.
There are also built in tools to the far right, where you can....
- email yourself either a copy of the article (in PDF or HTML format, as applicable), or a citation for the article that links back.
- Copy an MLA or APA citation (among other styles available)
- Copy the stable URL, or Permalink (as merely bookmarking the page will not get you access to the results later).
Finally, the PDF to the article is generally on the left-side.
(click on image to enlarge)
Getting a citation
The majority of the library's databases will provide citations (MLA, APA, Chicago, and others) for the articles they house. Often these are computer-generated and can have errors, so it's a good thing to check the citation against a style guide.
(click on image to enlarge)
Some of the common errors we see are...
- ALL CAPITAL LETTERS for all or part of the author names or titles
- Incorrect capitalization for the given style ( such as the use of Sentence case)
- Missing italics (often used in the title/source name)
- Missing links/URL or DOIs (for articles that have DOIs, and not all do)
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