Guides: PSY 371 Treatment of Sex Offenders: Find Sources

students reading in front of periodical display

Also known as peer-reviewed articles, scholarly articles are sources that are:

written by experts in the field
reviewed by other experts in the field (hence the peer-reviewed)
intended for an academic audience

While you can find scholarly articles through general search engines, databases contain a feature where you can narrow your results to only scholarly articles.

Find Subject-Specific Articles:

APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
World's largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. Produced by the American Psychological Association, it includes more than 4 million bibliographic records and indexing of more than 2,500 journals.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
For search by Publication Type, see PubMed's subject term guide: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/pubtypes.html
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive sociology research database that contains full text for more than 630 journals and magazines, as well as books, monographs, and conference papers. Covers various areas of study including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, racial studies, religion and social work.
HeinOnline Academic This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline Academic includes more than 100 million pages of multidisciplinary content in more than 100 subject areas, including history, political science, criminal justice, religious studies, international relations, women’s studies, pre-law, and many more.

Find Articles in Multidisciplinary Databases:

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate offers access to resources cited in key subject indexes. The combination of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more.
Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning. Includes extensive coverage in key subject areas such as biology, chemistry, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.

Student thumbing through a book in front of library stacks

Books and eBooks often provide a broader overview and cover more information than a scholarly journal article.

You don't need to read an entire book to use it in your research. Use the index at the back of a book to find the information you need.

To find books and eBooks, you can either:

Search the NOBLE catalog

NOBLE Catalog Search
Search the Jenks Library catalog for books, eBooks, audiobooks, scores, etc.

Browse the stacks for a book related to your topic

HV6251-6773.55 Crimes and offenses

Quick Way to Cite

Screenshot of Cite box on EBSCO database showing a formatted MLA citation that you can copy and paste

If you found an article on a database, look for the Cite button to get a formatted citation for your Works Cited, in less time than it takes for EasyBib to load.

APA Works Cited & In-Text Citations

Works Cited Format	Author. "Title." Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs and/or URL, DOI or permalink).
1 Author	Brennan, M. (2020). Dungeons & Dragons and Damsels in Distress: A Visual Rhetorical Critique of The Dungeon Master’s Guide. Women & Language, 43(2), 223–251. https://doi.org/10.34036/WL.2020.021
2 Authors	Wang, Y., & Hao, X. (2022). Virtual nexus: Female players’ emotional attachment in a role-playing video game. Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28(2), 488–505. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221089212
3+ Authors	Domahidi, E., Breuer, J., Kowert, R., Festl, R., & Quandt, T. (2018). A Longitudinal Analysis of Gaming- and Non-Gaming-Related Friendships and Social Support among Social Online Game Players. Media Psychology, 21(2), 288–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1257393

In-text Citation Format	Format	Example
1 Author	(Author's Family Name Date).	(Brennan 2020).
2 Authors	(Family Name and Family Name Date).	(Wang and Hao 2022).
3+ Authors	(Family Name et al. Date).	(Domahidi et al. 2018).

Download Zotero
Step 1: Download the app from Zotero.org.
Step 2: Add the Zotero Connector to your preferred web browser.
Step 3: Register for a Zotero account.
Step 4: Adjust preferences settings in the app.

Forming your Search String

The more complicated your question, the less likely a search engine can understand it. To get the best result, identify keywords and like terms to create a search string.

Example research question: How can medication impact recidivism among sex offenders?

Keywords: Medication, recidivism, sex offenders

Like terms can include synonyms and also examples of your keywords. If you don't get results from searching your keywords, it doesn't mean that the research doesn't exist. It could mean that the researcher used different language to describe the same topic

Medication: pharmacological treatment, antilibidinal medication
Recidivism: repeat offenders
Sex offenders: sexual offenders

Search strings connect your keywords and like terms together for the best results.

Too many results? Use AND to narrow results

medication AND recidivism AND sex offenders

Too few results? Use OR to broaden results

medication OR pharmacological treatment OR antilibidinal medication AND recidivism OR repeat offenders AND sex offenders OR sexual offenders

If you find an article or book that you can't access, don't pay for it! Instead, submit an Interlibrary Loan request, and you'll receive articles within a few days!

Interlibrary Loan: Article & Book Request
Can't find the article or book you're looking for at Gordon? Fill out the Interlibrary Loan request form and we'll track the article or book down for you!

Are you looking for a specific article, like an article that you found referenced in a bibliography? Search for the journal in Journal Finder, linked below:

Browse Journal Finder
Find individual journals and search within specific publications.