Psychology: PsycINFO Tutorial

APA PsycINFO contains citations and summaries from various journals and books which cover psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, including sociology, education, business, economics, and law. Journal coverage includes international material selected from more than 1,300 periodicals written in over 30 languages. The collection includes citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports, citations for dissertations, and some full-text articles. You can also use the strategies outlined below to search Education Full Text + ERIC, another great database.

To get to APA PsycINFO:

1. Go to the library homepage at lib.utah.edu and log in in the upper right corner with your uNID and password.

2. Click on the Databases Tab above the search box.

3. Click on the letter P, and scroll down to PsycINFO

4. Enter your search terms in the search box. 

5. If you have a very specific topic in mind, click on the Thesaurus tab in the upper right corner. Here, you can search for subject headings, which are specific terms that are related to your search. For instance, if I was interested in family therapy, I could look for a specific subject heading related to this topic. Then, I could search for everything PsycINFO had available in this topic area. To search the Thesaurus, click on the tab and search for your term.

6. If you see a term that looks good, you can click on it to get more information about it, including related terms that you might also want to add to your search. Click the checkbox next to the terms you want to add and then click the Add button.

7. The subject headings will be added to your search. You can use other keywords to search, or start by just searching the headings.