*Science Research Guide*: Finding Articles & More

Examples of primary sources in psychology:

• Original research
• Experiment results
• Ethnographies
• Interviews
• Surveys
• Data sets

Examples of secondary sources in psychology:

• Reviews of the literature or literature reviews
• Critical interpretations of scholarly studies
• Journal articles that do not present new research

This research guide from the Arnold Berhnard Library at Quinnipiac University may also be helpful.

What is Empirical Research? 

Empirical research is based on observed and measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience rather than from theory or belief.

Key characteristics of empirical research:

• Statement about the methodology being used
• Research questions to be answered
• Definition of the group or phenomena being studied
• Process used to study this group or phenomena, including any controls or instruments such as tests or surveys

While reading:
Ask yourself, could I recreate this study and test these results?  Remember, the abstract of the article should provide a description of the methodology.

Joshua Vossler's video "Selecting and Using Keywords"

Keywords and Database Searching

• Use specific keywords, not questions.
• Revise your keywords to see how that changes your results.
• Look for more keywords in the articles you find.

For Biology topics, see also the Nursing/Health Research Guide or BIO-157.

For medical topics, see the Nursing/Health Research Guide:

This brief tutorial was developed by the University of Washington.