Psychology: Article Search

Guide to information for the field of Psychology. This page is updated and added to frequently.

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Why Articles?

Articles appear in magazines, journals, periodicals, and newspapers. Use articles for:

most recent research on a topic
coverage of very narrow topics
coverage of current events
contemporary accounts of past events and research

Evaluating Articles

Evaluate articles by:

Purpose: Is the purpose to inform, entertain, persuade or educate?
Objectivity: Are various sides or points-of-view represented?
Author: Does the author have expertise on the topic?
Date: Is the information current or timely for your topic?
Bibliography: Are the authors sources of information cited completely.

Article Databases

Databases provide a systematic method of searching for articles, and other documents, on your topic. Some databases include full text of the documents they index but many do not. The top databases for psychology are:

Psychology Database from Proquest This link opens in a new window
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Indexing and some full text of 800+ professional and scholarly periodicals related to psychology. 1980-present.
PsycINFO from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index of scholarly journal articles, books and dissertations in psychology and related fields. 1800s-present.
Subject coverage includes basic and applied psychology, abnormal and clinical psychology, experimental psychology, human and animal development, social psychology, professional psychology and educational psychology. Also includes bibliographic citations and abstracts of periodical articles, reports and dissertations, books and chapters. 1987 to present for books and chapters; 1872 to present for journal articles and other material. VPN required if off-campus and also using RefWorks.
Web of Science from Clarivate Analytics This link opens in a new window
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Searches 12,000+ scholarly journals in the sciences, social sciences and arts and humanities. Cited Reference Search locates articles that have cited an older document. Limited full-text access.
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), and the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index (1980-present for both).

Other Psychology databases
For additional databases indexing topics relevant to psychology see this entire list.

Getting the Articles

Here's a short video showing how Find it @ MU works. (About 4 minutes long.)

Two common ways to find out if the Libraries have access to the articles you need:

1) You are searching in an article database, but it doesn't have the full-text:

Click on in the article citation. Another window / tab opens with two possible options:

Links indicating Find it @MU may have located one or more sources for full text of the article. Click on the links and follow the trail to the article.
Links to search MARQCAT by the journal title or its ISSN number. The journal may be available in print or electronically through a source not searchable by Find it @MU.

2) You already have a specific citation and aren't currently searching in a database:

Search for the journal title in MARQCAT, the library catalog;
Do not search the title or author of the article, MARQCAT doesn't contain article level information.

The MARQCAT record will indicate what years we have in print and/or online, providing call number locations for the print and links to the e-journal. Once at the e-journal, navigate to the volume, issue and page that you need.

Questions:

Didn't find the article/journal using Find it @MU or MARQCAT? Request the article through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) by clicking on the link at the bottom of the Find it @MU window or tab. Learn more about ILL here.

Ever wonder why the full-text isn't there? Watch this short video about the Business of Information.