Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 56

We all probably develop a default preference for one or two databases. Like our preferred smartphone, we get used to the way it feels, how it works and we feel we are somehow in tune with it. However, this approach could be limiting us far more than we realise. If we visit the same café, order the same snack, drink the same drink, we are at least dimly aware of the alternatives – with databases we tend to almost forget that other options exist.

There are a couple of snags with giving advice of this nature to readers who are associated with different institutions. For one, my ESP is really rather limited, so I don’t know the provision at your university. The only compensation here is that you do, or at least you can do. The second is that even if I did have such incredible knowledge, I couldn’t keep up with your institution’s changing subscriptions, and if I did, this book would be so long and boring that it might become a major intervention for most forms of insomnia. Given these limitations, you need to become familiar with your institution’s online and hard-copy resources, and make use of your information professionals’ expertise in terms of identifying relevant information and accessing it. Here I will sketch out some key databases, but it is not a complete list (see also Table 2.4). The bespoke information concerning your specific institution will vary and it is really worth investing 45 or even 60 minutes of your life to find out about it. In the meantime, investing just a few minutes right here, right now could help you to avoid simply defaulting to whatever you are most familiar with.