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Michigan State University

PSY 209H--Researching your topic on Brain and Behavior: Finding Scientific Articles

Scientific Literature Databases

Tips for getting the most out of searches;

  1. Put in simple search terms or two-word search terms together.  This works much better than entering long phrases.
  2. Always check the date of the articles you retrieve to make sure you are getting the most recent research.
  3. Look first for review articles.  This will provide summary and background to help you understand the field.  There are instructions how to do this for each database. 
  4. These are an abstract databases, not full text.  To find the full text or articles, follow instructions for each database below. 

Databases for searching scientific literature

Google Scholar works very differently than the literature databases above.  It searches all kinds of resources, not just peer-reviewed journals or books.  Also, there is no human curation of quality for inclusion.  You will need to spend more time reviewing the quality of results from Google Scholar than if you use PubMed, Web of Science, or PsycINFO.  For more info see PubMed, Web of Science, or Google Scholar? A behind-the-scenes guide for life scientists  

To get MSU access links to show up, go to the "hamburger menu", click on Settings, then Library Links.  You will need to add MSU.  

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