Category: For Librarians

APA Style CENTRAL – Research Lab Book: Develop My Research Idea

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Librarians, For Students

Today we’d like to highlight one of our APA Style CENTRAL® handouts, “Research Lab Book: Develop My Research Idea” (PDF, 599K). Please feel free to link to this handout where students, faculty, and researchers will find it!

""APA Style CENTRAL’s Research Lab Book is a suite of tools to help you plan and document your research process. Develop My Research Idea guides you through developing a research idea that is neither too broad nor too narrow. Appropriate for use with original research or a literature review, this 5-step approach walks you through a structured framework for brainstorming your interests, identifying a specific topic, developing a research question, elaborating on the details of that question, and clarifying your expectations about the outcome of your research.

When you’re done, you’ll be ready to search for relevant literature and begin considering your study design.

Undergraduates and others who can benefit from a more structured way of formulating a research topic will find this tool helpful.

Faculty and writing instructors can also use these steps individually or in combination as Continue reading →

Webinar Alert: APA Style CENTRAL Trainings for February 2018

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Librarians

APA’s training specialists have developed several webinars for librarians, instructors, and students that include a content overview and a live demonstration of features.

Click on any session link to register (all times are EDT).

APA Style CENTRAL Online Introduction introduces librarians, faculty, and students to the platform:

Teaching with APA Style CENTRAL details how faculty, librarians, and other instructors can use APA Style CENTRAL in teaching APA Style:

Writing Papers in APA Style CENTRAL teaches end users how to create and save papers using APA Style CENTRAL:

For more information, including the full training schedule, visit the APA Style CENTRAL webinars page.

APA Style CENTRAL® Expert Tip – Adding Paper Sections

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Librarians, For Students

When you start writing a paper in APA Style CENTRAL®, you choose a template and then choose either the Student assignment or Professional manuscript version. The difference is that the Professional version includes three additional paper sections – an Author Note, an Abstract, and Keywords.

You can add these fields to a paper that was started using the Student template.

 

Click on the Customize Paper Sections on the upper right, and then select to Include Author Note, Abstract, and/or Keywords.

The Abstract and Keywords will be added as sections ahead of the Body on the left side, and Author Note will be added as a section within the Title Page.

If you have started a paper in the Professional template, and don’t want to use these fields, just leave them blank.

Updated Help Pages

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Librarians

At the end of last year, we reviewed and updated the APA PsycNET® help pages to make sure the content was current and easy for our users to navigate.

 

The main help explains how to set up a search, manage the results list, use your MyAPA Account, the Browse menu, and other tools you’ll see on APA PsycNET®.

http://help.psycnet.org/en/

 

The PsycTESTS help explains searchable fields and the record structure that are unique to the PsycTESTS® database on APA PsycNET.

http://help.psycnet.org/en/psyctests-help/

 

The admin center help is for library administrators and explains how to customize for your institution, view usage statistics, and use other tools in the APA PsycNET Admin Center.

http://help.psycnet.org/en/admin-center-help/

 

Something missing? Let us know! psycinfo@apa.org

In Case You Missed It – Searching By Keyword, Index Term, and More

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

In January of 2017, we posted about searching APA PsycInfo® by different vocabularies – keywords, index terms, classification codes, and MeSH.

In case you missed it, start the new semester off with a better understanding of which vocabulary will suit your needs.

Keywords (also called Key Concepts or Identifiers) – individual words, key concepts, or brief phrases that describe the document’s content; usually provided by the author or publisher.

Good for researchers who are new to a topic.

Index Terms (also called Subjects or Subject Headings) – are chosen by APA staff from Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms®.

Good for the focused researcher. 

Classification Codes (also called APA PsycInfo Classifications) – a descriptive term plus a corresponding numerical code; like the index terms, there is a pre-existing list, or controlled vocabulary.

Good to pair with keywords or index terms.

MeSH – Medical Subject Headings are a controlled vocabulary maintained by the National Library of Medicine for their PubMed database.

Good for medical or neuroscience topics.

To learn more about any of these search vocabularies, review our post on them from January 2017.

Related Resources:

APA PsycInfo Expert Tip – Searching by Keywords Across Platforms

APA PsycInfo Expert Tip – Classification Codes

Tutorial – Using APA PsycInfo Classification Codes on EBSCOhost