While working on a research paper in APA Style CENTRAL®, you may want to add as a reference a video within the Learning Center.
The best way to add APA Style CENTRAL content to My References is to select the Create tab within Add References.
From there, you can choose the reference type that best fits, such as Streaming and other online video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.), in the Audiovisual Media tab.
It’s Tutorial Thursday! In this series, we explore APA’s library of video tutorials available on the PsycINFO YouTube channel and the APA Style CENTRAL® YouTube channel.
For today’s edition of Tutorial Thursday, we’d like to highlight a video series on our PsycINFO YouTube channel: Searching the Tests & Measures field in PsycINFO
This brief (3 – 4 minute) video shows how to:
https://youtu.be/7U6D8vKTTdI
A version of this tutorial is available for each PsycINFO platform.
Related Resource: PsycINFO Expert Tip: Finding the Tests in PsycINFO
Please feel free to link to this tutorial in any location where students, faculty, and researchers will find it!
Do you have a “how-to” question about PsycINFO or PsycTESTS? Please let us know!
The Charleston Library Conference’s Vendor Showcase will be held at the Gaillard Center Grand Ballroom (95 Calhoun Street) o Tuesday, Nov 7, 2017 from 10:30 am – 6:00 pm.
Come visit APA at Table #40!
Keyword searching is a good fit for researchers who are new to a topic and want to get the full scope of the research available. Before you begin searching, you should be aware of the differences between keywords and index terms. Also, note the platform you use to access PsycINFO®, since it may search additional fields alongside keyword.
Keywords (also called Key Concepts or Identifiers) are words or brief phrases that describe the document’s content. The list of keywords for an article is often provided by the author or publisher, though sometimes it is created by APA staff. Keywords can be any word or phrase, and so they are “uncontrolled.”
Index Terms (also called Subjects or Subject Headings) are chosen by APA staff from a pre-exiting list of major topics. This means that Index Terms are a “controlled” vocabulary.
Unlike the other PsycINFO fields, searching by keyword pulls in results from additional fields on some platforms. This means if you run the same PsycINFO keyword search on different platforms, you may get a different set of results. If you notice you are getting results that don’t include the keywords you searched for, check the index terms field or the title field for the terms.
Below are the fields that are included in a PsycINFO keyword search on each platform.
Here is an APA PsycNET record where a keyword search for “big bang theory” led to a record with the phrase in the title, but not in the keyword field.
You can search by keyword to become familiar with a new topic, identify the best journals or authors in an area, or see different perspectives on an issue. However, if you are planning to search on a topic over a long period of time, or revisit a saved search, we recommend using Index Terms instead. Searching by Index Term returns more consistent results because they are assigned from a controlled list and because they return the same records regardless of platform – no additional fields are searched.
You can learn more about keywords and other PsycINFO vocabularies in our previous post on searching with keywords, Index Terms, and more.
Related resource: How & Why to Use the Thesaurus tutorials, a guide to searching with index terms
The APA Handbooks in Psychology series was launched in 2011 to provide comprehensive overviews and in-depth study of specific subfields within psychology. All of the Handbooks are included in the PsycBOOKS® database, and titles are also available individually.
The series currently contains 26 authoritative titles, including the 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology.
The most recent addition to the series, the APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent, was published in August 2017. It incorporates the most recent thinking and cutting-edge research from a wide range of fields related to gifted education, including developmental and social psychology, the neurosciences, cognitive science, and education.
Earlier this summer, the APA Handbook of Forensic Neuropsychology, was published in July 2017. This handbook covers the scientific and clinical neuropsychological advances and their application in forensic contexts.
PsycBOOKS users on APA PsycNET® (including subscribers to APA PsycNET Gold, Gold Plus, and Platinum), EBSCOhost, Ovid and ProQuest can access the entire series by browsing PsycBOOKS or by performing a title search for a particular handbook.
Institutions also have the option of purchasing handbooks individually. Print only, Electronic only, or Electronic + Print options are available through APA, with electronic access provided via the APA PsycNET® platform. For more information on pricing and availability, please see the APA website or contact us at quotes@apa.org.