1.) What is an ABSTRACT? An abstract is a summary of a larger work such as a journal or magazine article.  You can read the abstract to decide if an article will be helpful in your research.  Reading an abstract is NOT the same as reading the entire journal article.  An abstract discusses the most important information from the journal article.

2.) What is a BIBLIOGRAPHY? Published bibliographies are lists, often with descriptive or critical notes, of writings relating to a particular subject, author, or time period (i.e. "The Animal Rights Movement in the United States, 1975-1990: An Annotated Bibliography").

3.) What is a a THESAURUS?  A thesaurus is an alphabetical list of terms used in an online database like PsycINFO.  It provides relatioships among the terms, such as synonyms, related terms, broader terms, and/or narrower terms.  The language you think of may not be the same language the psychology field thinks of.  For example, you may desire  articles about "road rage," but the index  clearly points you to the correct terminology, "aggressive driving behavior."

 4.) What are BOOLEAN OPERATORS? (connectors) Using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to build your searches will get more precise and relevant results.  Example of Boolean Operators used in a search: stress OR anxiety, stress AND anxiety, stress NOT anxiety.

5.) What is a CITATION? A citation is the basic information you need to find a specific item in the library.  Citations generally contain the author, the title, the year of publication, the page number and also the journal, magazine or newspaper title, volume, publisher and more. 

6.) What is a DATABASE? A database is a searchable file of information.  Most library databases contain citations or references (the basic information you need to find a journal article), abstracts (brief summary of an article), and, in some databases, full-text (the text of the journal article). Using a database will help you save time and find better results when you are searching for journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.

7.) What is a DISSERATION or THESIS? An academic thesis or dissertation is a large research paper written by students in order to complete their master's or doctoral degrees (PhD). Generally thesis refers to a Master's degree and dissertation refers to a Doctoral degree.

8.) What is FULL-TEXT?
Full text generally refers to the complete text of an article that is available electronically through the computer.  Full- text is usually in the PDF or HTML format.

9.) What is a PEER REVIEWED or REFEREED or SCHOLARLY  JOURNAL ARTICLE? A scholarly or peer reviewed article has gone through an editorial process in which a panel of experts (usually 3) read through the article and conclude that the research was done correctly and the information is accurate.  Scholarly articles usually are longer than 5 pages, have no advertisements, and have bibliographies at the end.  To find out if a journal is peer reviewed you can check their (publisher’s) website for information.