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Assessment details

This assignment help will assist you with searching for peer-reviewed literature and grey literature for your Pathway Analysis. Please refer to your Course Outline and lecture materials for full assessment information.

Getting started searching for peer-reviewed literature

When searching for peer-reviewed literature, it is not recommended that your search contains all three factors of your pathway analysis as it will likely be challenging to obtain relevant results. Instead, you will have more success if you start by focusing on one to two factors at a time. 

If you were working on the pathway figure above, your searching may be more effective if you start with one factor such as adulthood depression. You could then supplement the literature you find with this search by constructing a search on adolescent bullying and another search that ties together two of your factors, e.g. how adolescent bullying links to adult depression. 

Identifying synonyms

To increase the likelihood of finding relevant search results for your search topic, you must identify alternative words or synonyms for each key concept. See the table below for examples:

Key concepts Synonyms
Bullying bully, victimization, victimisation, teasing, emotional abuse, harassment
Adolescent adolescence, adolescents, teen, teens, teenager, teenagers, youth, youths, high school student, high school students, middle school student, middle school students

Depression depressive, depressed
Adulthood

adult, adults

There are many freely available thesauruses accessible via Google which can help you find alternative words. Additionally, the OVID database PsycINFO also has a thesaurus which includes technical psychological terms which you would not obtain from freely available thesauruses online. To access the PsycINFO thesaurus, head to the ‘Search Tools’ section and select ‘Thesaurus’ from the ‘Tool Type’ drop-down menu. 

As you begin finding relevant articles, scan through the abstracts for additional synonyms that you can incorporate into your search.

Constructing your search strategy

Now that you have identified synonyms for your key concepts, you can start combining these to form a search strategy.


Example search for one factor:

(depression OR depressive OR depressed) AND (adulthood OR adult OR adults)

This search focusing on one factor has two distinct concepts: a phenomena (depression) and a developmental stage (adulthood) combined with AND. Each concept is enclosed in parentheses with synonyms combined with OR. 

 

Example advanced search tying together two factors:

Search line one: (bullying OR bully OR victimization OR victimisation OR teasing OR "emotional abuse" OR harassment) AND (adolescence OR adolescent OR adolescents OR teen OR teens OR teenager OR teenagers OR youth OR youths OR "high school student" OR "high school students" OR "middle school student" OR "middle school students")

AND

Search line two: (depression OR depressive OR depressed) AND (adulthood OR adult OR adults)

For this search which ties together two factors, each search line represents one of our factors. Each search line has two distinct concepts: a phenomena (bullying in search line one and depression in search line two) and a developmental stage (adolescence in search line one and adulthood in search line two) combined with AND. Our synonyms within each search search line are combined with OR. Lastly, our two distinct search lines each representing a factor are then combined with AND.

NOTE: Compared to the search strategy focusing on one factor, the search tying together two factors will yield fewer results. If you are not finding enough results, you may like to experiment with excluding the developmental stage search terms from your search as this will yield more search results. 

Understanding search syntax:

  • AND: Combines distinct concepts. The more concepts you connect with AND the more focused your search will become.
  • OR: Combines synonyms. The more concepts you connect with OR the broader your search will become.
  •  "double quotation marks" keep phrases together
  • brackets (.....) groups each concept. 

Want to Know More?

Where to search for peer-reviewed literature

Library Collection

The Library Collection is a good starting point for finding peer-reviewed literature. Learn more from the Searching the Library Collection video.

Databases

It can also be worthwhile to supplement your Library Collection search with some database searches. Databases offer advanced search functionality which can enable you to find relevant literature that you likely would not have found if you only searched Google Scholar or the Library Collection.

Want to Know More?

Grey literature

For this assignment, in addition to peer-reviewed journal articles, you are also required to search for grey literature.

What is grey literature?

'Information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing, i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body'

- 1997 International Conference on Grey Literature, Luxembourg - definition expanded in New York, 2004 

Grey literature repositories

Key grey literature database

  • APA PsycExtra PsycEXTRA is a grey literature database relating to psychology, behavioural sciences, and health. The database contains publications such as technical and government reports, conference papers, newsletters, magazines, videos, press releases, and consumer brochures.

Key organisations

Clinical guidelines

Clinical trials

Policy

 

Searching Google and Google Scholar for grey literature

In addition to searching the grey literature repositories in the box above, it may also be worthwhile searching Google and Google Scholar (accessible via the Library home page) for grey literature.

Google search tips

  • Unlike databases, basic search boxes usually work better than advanced search options
  • Try starting with simple searches and building on this to focus further as needed
  • Try multiple individual searches with variations of your terms rather than creating one complex search
Tips Examples
Use double quotes to find exactly what you enter. This can be used for phrases, to find two or more terms in that order. “emotional abuse”
You can use OR to find alternative terms (must be in capitals) but performance may be unpredictable. Google Scholar has a character limit (256) - you can use a vertical bar instead of OR to save space

“emotional abuse” OR "emotional harassment"

Alternative option for Google Scholar
“emotional abuse”|“emotional harassment”
You can use AND to connect different concepts (must be in capitals) but performance may be unpredictable (“emotional abuse” OR “emotional harassment”) AND adolescence
Group sets of synonyms together. You can use parentheses but Google and Google Scholar will ignore them (“emotional abuse” OR “emotional harassment”) AND (adolescence OR teen)
Use AROUND when you are interested in the relationship between two query terms - as a 'proximity' operator. The AROUND(n) operator must be in capitals. emotional AROUND (2) abuse finds emotional abuse, abuse that is emotional in nature and more
Use the wildcard * as a placeholder for any unknown or wildcard terms. Replaces 1-4 words or numbers.

adolescen* will find adolescence, adolescent and adolescents  
You can limit your Google search to a specific web domain by prefixing your search with site: and entering in a URL before your other search terms. For example, site:gov.au will limit your search to Australian government websites.

site:gov.au "emotional abuse" AND adolescence

Evaluating information

As you find references, think about whether they are appropriate to use in your assignment. Evaluate all resources before including them, even if you found them through the Library Collection or a Database.

Video length: 3 min 17 sec

How to evaluate resources

CRAAP Questions to ask
Currency How current does the information need to be? Do you need to use information published in the last five years or are older, seminal works fine to use?
Relevance Does the information found answer your question? Do you understand the content and is it at the right level for your purpose?
Authority What are the author's qualifications? Are they linked to a particular organisation such as a university, research institute or government department?
Accuracy Is evidence given for the research undertaken? Can you verify the information presented by using other sources? Is there a bibliography or references given?
Purpose Is it trying to communicate research, persuade you or sell you something? Is it expressing an opinion, or is it balanced and objective?

More help

Oxford Bibliographies: Psychology

DSM-5 Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

APA Referencing Style