Why Use Databases?
The Merced College Library subscribes to many databases filled with authoritative articles, book chapters, research reports, statistics, and more from thousands of respected publications.
How Do I Use Databases?
To search for articles on your topic start by using one of the article databases listed below.
You can search these article databases either by topic or for a specific article.
| All of these resources are free for you because you are a student at Merced College. If you're working from anywhere off campus, you'll need to sign in to the Merced College Portal. |
| Original / Empirical | Review | ||
| based on an experiment or study. This type of article will have a methodology section that tells how the experiment was set up and conducted, a results or discussion section, and usually a conclusion section. In psychology courses, you are often asked to find empirical articles. Empirical articles are original research articles. | Literature Review | Systematic Review | Meta-Analysis |
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written to bring together and summarize the results/conclusions from multiple original research articles/studies. This type of article will not usually have a methodology section, and they generally have very extensive bibliographies. |
a form of literature review that comprehensively identifies, appraises, and synthesizes all relevant research on a specifically formulated question. |
combines carefully selected data from previous empirical studies to bring more rigor to a statistical or other analysis. |
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Multi-disciplinary database providing full text for more than 4,600 journals, including peer-reviewed full text for nearly 3,900 journals.
Covers topics related to emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry, psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods. Provides full text access to nearly 400 journals.
The largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health developed by the American Psychological Association.Contains approximately 3 million citations and summaries as well as open access full text for more than 4,700 records.
Use the Methodology limiter to narrow to empirical study (original research).
You may also want to try clinical case study, clinical trial, or treatment outcome depending on your topic.
Use the Methodology limiter to narrow to literature review.
You may also want to try systematic review or meta analysis.
Use the relevant articles you find to help you discover additional literature on your topic:
Popular questions are: