Psychology

Every research project starts with a question. Your question will allow you to select, evaluate and interpret your sources systematically. The question you start with isn’t set in stone, so you can revisit and revise it as you learn more about your project. Here are some ideas for generating a good research question:

• Always think about the 5 W's - who, what, when, where, and why.
• Doing some background research with reference or "quick guide to X" handbook sources can help you identify areas that interest you within your topic area - this can even be with quick google searches or reading a Wikipedia article.
• Think about what questions you have about your topic - what do you want to learn more about? If the research project is for an assignment, find the crossover between what you are interested in and what the assignment is asking you to do.
• Make a concept map of your topic and all the possible aspects or perspectives of your topic that you can think of. Brainstorming can serve as a map to guide you through the research process, often saving a lot of time down the road.

With your newly found research question, the library's resources are yours to explore! Construct a search query, browse the shelves, or find a database in your subject area to get started!

Using the best searching methods is important to get the most out of the library's resources! Here are some strategies to help you translate your research questions into search queries:

1. There are checkboxes on the library search to automatically limit searches to full text and scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles. Using those makes sure that your results are specially tailored for academic research projects.
2. Break down your research questions into key concepts and keywords. Library searches don't work well with regular questions like Google does, so using several keywords instead can widen your searches.
3. Use keywords and synonyms to cover different ways ideas might be expressed. A database may seem like it doesn't have what you're looking for, but sometimes using a synonym can help find it!
4. Take advantage of the various filters or the "Advanced Search" function. Narrowing down the results by type or year means quicker access to more relevant resources.
5. Use quotation marks for exact phrases. The search <industrial revolution> will retrieve results for both the keywords and the phrase, but the search <"industrial revolution"> will only retrieve results that contain the combined phrase exactly as you typed it.
6. Adjust as you go! No single search will find every helpful result, so try different searches, analyze your results, and refine your questions!

Sometimes, it's nice to just wander the shelves looking for just the right book, flipping through to gauge the contents. The book collection is organized according to Library of Congress Call Numbers. Where to start? Call numbers that start with the letter BF are for Psychology, but there are other areas of the library that might also be of interest (See Library of Congress Classification Outline). Below is a breakdown of the call number ranges for specific topics related to Psychology.

• Psychology: BF (home base for everything primarily about Psychology)
• Psychoanalysis: BF173-145.5
• Psychological tests and testing: BF176-176.5
• Motivation: BF501-505
• Applied psychology: BF636-637
• Developmental psychology: BF712-724.85
• Class psychology: BF725-727
• Social psychology: HM1001-1281
• Educational psychology: LB1050.9-1091
• Psychiatry: RC435-571
• Therapeutics. Psychotherapy: RC475-489
• Psychopathology: RC512-569.5
• Developmental disabilities: RC569.7-571
• Neurosciences: RC321-571
• Child psychology and psychiatry: RJ499-507
• Psychology of death, terminal care, bereavement: R726 
• Neurophysiology and neuropsychology​​​​​​​: QP351-495
• Social Psychology​​: HM1001-1281
• Criminal Anthropology: HV6035-6197

These are some of the databases that the library offers for the field of Psychology. More can be found in the library's A-Z list.

[Note: Google Scholar is a Google search through peer-reviewed sources, but you may find results that are not held by ENMU. You can request those articles through Interlibrary Loan.]