Literature Search Methods and Sources in Psychology

Vocabulary practice cards covering search strategies, published and unpublished source types, review types, and key academic journals from the lecture on psychological literature searches.

Primary Sources

Original research reports published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals that report findings conducted directly by the authors that have not been published anywhere else.

Secondary Sources

Summaries of previously published studies written either by the original investigators or someone else, appearing in textbooks, edited volumes, or scientific magazines for everyday readers.

Edited Volumes

Books featuring chapters written by authors who summarize work and research that has already been published elsewhere.

Informal Literature Search

A casual or exploratory search of the literature used to get an initial view or feel for a research topic.

Formal Literature Search

A systematic search conducted with a clear research question to precisely determine, describe, and fit one's work into what has already been done on a topic.

Diana Ramirez

The psychology librarian at Evans Library who prepared a library course guide to help students conduct literature searches.

Review Paper

A comprehensive summary paper that reviews the literature on a topic, outlining research questions, methods, and findings across multiple studies.

Classic References

The foundational one or two studies on a topic that established the phenomenon and are continually cited by subsequent researchers.

Title and Abstract

The two most critical components of a research article when searching academic databases during a literature search.

Theoretical Paper

An article whose main focus is tying together multiple studies to organize conceptual frameworks, build a theory, summarize conclusions, draw generalizations, and make predictions for others to test.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS)

A psychology journal famous for publishing sweeping overview papers on current controversies alongside invited peer commentaries and author replies in a single issue.

Invited Commentary

A brief critique (typically around 1,000 words) written by peers on a main position article, published together with the original article and the authors' reply in the same journal issue.

Narrative Review

A review that summarizes a body of research work verbally without running statistical analyses on the combined study results.

Systematic Review

A formal and focused review designed to answer a precise question using predetermined criteria set in advance for including or excluding studies.

Scoping Review

A type of systematic review common in medical journals that summarizes current research findings while explicitly identifying gaps where more research is needed.

Meta-analysis

A quantitative research synthesis method that aggregates data from multiple published and unpublished studies to run statistical analyses on the combined dataset.

Psychological Science

An established general-audience psychology journal published by the Association for Psychological Science (APS) that covers a wide range of topics.

Annual Reviews

A book publication series where invited leading experts write state-of-the-art summary reviews on the current status of research topics.

Behavior Research Methods

A practical psychology journal that publishes studies on new empirical techniques, methodologies, and practical research tools.

Theses and Dissertations

Unpublished academic works that offer detailed descriptions of measures, raw data, scales, and complete appendices without journal space constraints, providing timely previews of research.

Annual Reports

Unpublished yearly reports published by research centers to showcase ongoing research projects and demonstrate public accountability for funding.