Your instructor may ask your to use only scholarly resources for your paper. What's the difference between a scholarly or non-scholarly resource?
Scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources include books and articles published in scholarly journals, encyclopedias, and books. These sources are reviewed by a panel of experts in that particular field, and are often published by a professional association or a university press. These experts ensure the information published is credible before accepting it for publication.
Non-Scholarly sources include websites, magazines, newspapers, and books that undergo no expert review prior to publishing.
Check with your instructor if you plan to use non-scholarly sources and use the CRAAP test to evaluate them.
These three articles have a common topic, but cover it a different levels.
Search for a focused topic in psychology.
Megasearch provides a useful starting point for your research, and here are some tips for using Megasearch more effectively:
1. Open MegaSearch--Advanced Search
2. In the Disciplines box (below), check-mark Psychology.
3. In the top search box, enter keyword(s) for your main topic. Click Search.
4. Add a "focus" concept in the 2nd search box. Click Search.
Limit to Popular Magazine articles
Why do this? Magazine articles are easy-to-read introductions to psychological topics.
Limit to Academic Journal articles (= Scholarly Journal articles)
Why do this? Journal articles give reports on original psychological research, but they are dense.
This database contains some material that is not found in MegaSearch. It is devoted to psychology topics and journals.
Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles from the American Psychological Association