Tag: tutorials

Tutorial Tuesday: How (and Why) to use the APA Thesaurus on APA PsycNET

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

It’s Tutorial Tuesday! In this series, we explore APA’s library of video tutorials available on the PsycINFO® YouTube channel and the APA Style CENTRAL® YouTube channel. Please feel free to link to or embed our videos in your library websites or LibGuides, course management systems, or other locations where students, faculty, and researchers will find them.

We recently updated one of our tutorials: How (and Why) to Use the APA Thesaurus on APA PsycNET®.""

How can you be sure you are finding the best results for your search?

By using the best search terms! The APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (“APA Thesaurus”) contains the controlled vocabulary that APA uses to describe and categorize all content indexed in PsycINFO. This resource is regularly updated to include new and changing terminology for topics in the behavioral sciences, and you can put it to work for you!

Using the APA Thesaurus helps you eliminate “noise” from your search and retrieve the most relevant results by revealing the best search terms for your topic. The APA Thesaurus is a valuable tool for students new to research or any researcher who is new to a topic area and may not yet know the best terminology for searching.

This brief video (2:40 minutes) demonstrates the benefits of using the APA Thesaurus when searching databases on the APA PsycNET platform, and includes:

  • Examples of recent terminology updates to the APA Thesaurus;
  • How to access the APA Thesaurus when crafting a search;
  • Using the APA Thesaurus to find related terms for narrowing or expanding your search;
  • Discovering index terms for broader concepts that encompass your research topic and make searching more efficient; and
  • Uncovering additional search terms you may not have considered.

This tutorial is a great resource to link from a LibGuide or course module for any class working with APA Databases on APA PsycNET, and can be helpful in answering email or chat reference questions.

The previous version of this tutorial will remain available, but if you have embedded or linked to it anywhere, we encourage you to update your materials with the link to this new version.

Related Resources:

Tutorial Thursday – Searching PsycINFO’s Tests & Measures Field

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

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:

  • Search and view the Tests & Measures field in PsycINFO records, to see a list of the tests and measures used in a particular study;
  • Follow the DOI to view the PsycTEST record for a test or measure, when available;
  • Use the “[Appended]” notation to locate the test questions in the appendix, methodology, or table of the article’s full-text.

 

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!

Tutorial Thursday: Starting a Paper in APA Style CENTRAL

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

For today’s edition of Tutorial Thursday, we’d like to highlight a video on our APA Style CENTRAL® YouTube channel: APA Style CENTRAL: Starting a Paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgOY3WiPw6Q

This brief video (3:35 min) demonstrates how to begin writing your paper in APA Style CENTRAL. Highlights include:

  • Selecting a writing template;
  • The difference between the “Student assignment” and “Professional manuscript” options when beginning your paper;
  • Using the Headings tool to quickly format headings in APA Style®;
  • Using the linked outline to add a new section to your paper, rearrange sections, and quickly navigate between sections;
  • Getting help with APA Style guidelines while writing; and
  • Exporting your paper as a Microsoft Word or PDF file.

Please feel free to link to this tutorial in any location where students, faculty, and researchers will find it!

Want to learn more? View our related resources:

Tutorial Thursday: Adding an Author Note in APA Style CENTRAL

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

For today’s edition of Tutorial Thursday, we’d like to highlight a video on our APA Style CENTRAL YouTube channel: APA Style CENTRAL: Adding an Author Note.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-awGc022ck

This brief video (2 min) demonstrates how to add an Author Note to your paper in APA Style CENTRAL, and includes:

  • The distinction between the options of “Student assignment” or “Professional manuscript” when starting a new paper;
  • Using the Customize Paper Sections tool to add an Author Note section to a student paper; and
  • Viewing the formatted Author Note on the manuscript’s title page via the Preview tab.

Please feel free to link to this tutorial in any location where students, faculty, and researchers will find it!

Want to learn more? View our related resources:

Tutorial Thursday: Using the Author Affiliation Field in PsycINFO on EBSCOhost

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

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. Please feel free to link to or embed our videos in your library websites or LibGuides, course management systems, or other locations where students, faculty, and researchers will find them.

We recently updated one of our tutorials: Using the Author Affiliation Field in PsycINFO on EBSCOhost.

Video thumbnail

Do you want to discover what institutions are conducting research relevant to a specific topic, or track down a corresponding author’s contact information?

The Author Affiliation field in PsycINFO provides information about authors’ affiliations at the time of publication. This can be helpful to psychology students and practitioners who want to locate an author, see the kind of research conducted at an institution, or are considering where to apply to graduate school based on topics of interest.

This three-minute video demonstrates how to use the PsycINFO® Author Affiliation Field when searching PsycINFO on the EBSCOhost platform, and includes:

  • Description and search examples for the PsycINFO Author Affiliation field;
  • Using the Source, Authors, and Address fields to help obtain the contact information for a corresponding author; and
  • How to search for articles written by authors affiliated with a particular institution.

This tutorial is a great resource to link from a LibGuide or course module for any class working with APA Databases on EBSCOhost, and can be helpful in answering email or chat reference questions.

The previous version of this tutorial will remain available, but if you have embedded or linked to it anywhere, we encourage you to update your materials to link to this new version.

Related Resources: