E-Reference Resources
Selecting a Topic and Defining Terms
Choosing a topic for your research can feel like an overwhelming task. Find background information on potential topics with the Library's subject encyclopedias on the Psychology Subject Guide.
- "Self Esteem" from the Encyclopedia of Educational Psychology
- "Terror Management Theory" from the Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology
As you read through your research articles, you may come across concepts or terms that you are not familiar with. Do not hesitate to look them in the encyclopedias and handbooks on the Psychology Subject Guide.
- Dictionary of Psychology
- Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research in Psychology
- Psychology topics from APA
Scholarly Articles
The most efficient approach to locating scholarly journal articles on any topic is to start out with one of the library databases such as PsycINFO. These databases index hundreds of scholarly journals and link you to articles on your topic of choice.
The Library has subscriptions to numerous scholarly psychology journals. The links on the library website are your access point to the full text online. You may be prompted to authenticate as a Villanova student. Use your Villanova user id and email password. While you may be able to find some of the same content through Google, you may not be able to link to the full text.
If the full text of the article is not available via the database, use Interlibrary Loan to obtain your article. A scan of the requested article will be sent to you by email.
Find Full Text with an Article Citation
Citations
APA Style
Publication manual for the American Psychological Association
- Available for use in the Library, this is the official guide to APA style.
- APA Style Blog- - a good resource for answering your APA questions
- How to Determine Whether a Title is Paginated by Issue by Tyler Krupa
OWL (Purdue University Online Writing Lab) - APA
- OWL is a freely available online resource provided by Purdue University. The OWL gives clear instructions for formatting your paper and bibliography in APA style.