LibGuides: Couple &amp; Family Therapy (CFT): Welcome New CFT Grad Students!

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Contact:

UNLV Libraries
Lied Library
4505 S. Maryland Parkway
Box 457014
Las Vegas, NV 89154-7014
susie.skarl@unlv.edu

702-895-2141

Subjects: Communication Studies, Couple & Family Therapy, Criminal Justice, Crisis & Emergency Management, Government Information, Journalism & Media Studies, Public Administration, Social Work, Urban Studies

CFT Grad Orientation PowerPoint

CFT Grad Orientation PowerPoint, Fall 2025

Welcome!

Welcome to the Couple & Family Therapy Graduate Student Library Research Guide!

Welcome from UNLV Libraries!

In order to access the online resources through the UNLV Libraries, please log on with your Ace Account.

To begin, view the UNLV Libraries video tutorials.

Need more help? Contact your librarian, Susie Skarl at susie.skarl@unlv.edu

The Inquiry Process

The Inquiry Process, Step By Step - By Tina Barseghian

CFT-Related Databases

UNLV Quick Search
Quick Search is an innovative Google-like research discovery engine that provides instant search access to a high proportion of the University Libraries’ resources, including peer-reviewed & scholarly journal articles, dissertations, and more.

EBSCO Databases
Good for: Selecting from a list of EBSCO databases to use for researching various subjects Contains: Database descriptions and links

Lists more than 30 databases available through the EBSCOhost interface. The databases index all subject areas with solid coverage of business, education, film, health, psychology, sociology, and sports. For each database there is a description of the content and some link to a Title List of indexed journals. Most databases contain full text articles from academic journals. Choose a single database to search or select multiple databases and search them simultaneously.
Academic Search Premier
Good for: Conducting academic research on all subjects.
Contains: Journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.
SocINDEX with Full Text
Good for: Researching sociology and related disciplines.
Contains: Index to literature.
Dates covered: 1895-present.

Includes selected journals, monographs, and conference papers. Encompasses all subdisciplines of sociology, including abortion, anthropology, criminology, criminal justice, marriage & family, politics, religion, rural sociology, social psychology, social structure, social work, sociological theory, sociology of education, substance abuse, urban studies, and many others.
APA PsycARTICLES
Good for: Accessing full-text articles from the 50 journals published by APA.
Contains: Articles from peer-reviewed journals.
Dates covered: 1987-present.
APA PsycINFO 1887-Current
Good for: Researching psychological literature.
Contains: Journal articles, books, and dissertations.
Dates covered: 1800-present.

Tutorial: Finding Tests in APA PsycTests

Child Development and Adolescent Studies
Good for: Researching child development and adolescent studies.
Contains: Current and historical scholarly literature.
Family & Society Studies Worldwide
Good for: Researching family science, human ecology, human development, and social welfare.
Contains: Journal articles.
Dates covered: 1970-present.
PTSDpubs
Good for: Finding information on PTSD and other mental health consequences of trauma.
Contains: Citations and abstract to scholarly literature.
Psychology and Counseling
Good for: Researching psychology and counseling.
Contains: Psychology journals.

Includes the full text of 35 journals published by SAGE and participating societies, some journals going back 36 years, and encompasses over 21,600 articles. It covers such subjects as Psychology, Child Development, Family Studies, Language Acquisition, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.
Dissertations and Theses
Good for: Dissertations and theses.
Contains: Citations, abstracts, and full text of dissertations and theses.
Dates covered: Citations from 1861, abstracts from 1980 for dissertations and 1988 for theses, full text from 1996 for UNLV items and 1997 for most others.
Dissertations and Theses: UNLV
Good for: Finding UNLV dissertations and theses.
Contains: Citations, abstracts, and full text of UNLV dissertations and theses.
Dates covered: Full text for most items begins in 1996.

Learn Effective Database Search Strategies

Learn Effective Database Search Strategies

(The following are suggestions to improve your search results)

Use different search terms or keywords

a. Try using other words to describe your topic, it will give you better results.

b. Examples: cohabitation, living together, moving in together, common law marriage

Truncation or wildcard (*)

a. This will locate alternate endings for your search term.

b. Example - mar* to find marriage, marital, married, etc.

c. Note: Some databases use different symbols; consult the help page for the correct symbol

Try different databases

a. Each database contains unique material, so searching a different database may yield more relevant research.

Help page

a. Each database has a page with tips to help you effectively search that resource.

Research Planner

Sage Research Methods--Project Planner
This tool is designed to guide you through your research project. First, think about what stage you're at in your research. If you've already gotten started, click on the stage below that best describes where you are. If you're just starting out, it might be helpful to read more about why we do research before getting started.

Tips for Searching on Google Scholar

A note about Google Scholar . . .

Although Google Scholar contains many resources, it does not contain access to all relevant resources for hospitality research. Researchers are strongly encouraged to look at the additional resources mentioned above to conduct a thorough literature review. You do not need to purchase articles via Google Scholar many are available for through the UNLV Libraries or via Interlibrary Loan.

For help connecting to UNLV Libraries' resources through Google Scholar see the following.

GoogleScholarcapture

Website | Feed

Google Scholar Settings

Literature Review Resources

Video--Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students.
Excellent overview of the literature review process from NCSU.

Search for Online & Streaming Videos

UNLV Libraries Online Videos & Streaming Media Home Page
The UNLV Libraries provide access to thousands of streaming videos for UNLV use. You can search the catalog to find them, or visit the video collection websites directly. Many of the collection sites allow you to register a personal account for creating and managing clips, playlists, and other customized views of the content.

A Few Sample Online Videos

APA Style Resources

APA 7th Overview Handout
Samantha's handout covering the basics of APA style - 7th Edition.
APA Overview
Samantha's PPT (updated for 7th Edition), including potentially tricky examples such as book chapters and secondary citations.

APA 7th Edition Quick Reference Guide
From APA, color-coded explanation of journal, book, and book chapter references (pdf).
APA 6th/7th Comparison Chart
Side by side comparison of the two editions, created by a librarian at East Carolina University.
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) - APA Style Guide
This is a dependable site for APA questions. Look for their Sample Paper, too.

Other Resources:

APA Style and Grammar Guidelines
From APA: Detailed instructions and examples from the 7th edition
Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style
from APA
Free DOI Lookup Tool
Provides a DOI for an article citation when one is available.
Is it Plagiarism Yet? (Purdue OWL)
Explains when to give credit to another person for their intellectual work (and how to do it correctly). Look for the "Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing" section on the left for examples of each.

Citation Analysis Tools

Use the following resources to track citations, including by author, number of articles cited, number of articles published, etc.

Social Sciences Citation Index
The Social Sciences Citation Index ® (SSCI ®) provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in over 1,700 of the world's leading scholarly social sciences journals covering more than 50 disciplines.
Scopus
Scopus also features a citation index, allowing you to find the papers that cite a specific piece of research.

Google Scholar
On your first visit, go to Google Scholar Preferences and use the Library Links box to set UNLV as your source for no-fee access to many full text articles. For answers to questions about Google Scholar, check out the FAQ. Note: To access and retrieve full-text materials owned by the UNLV Libraries, click on the options wheel in the top right corner of the page and select "Scholar Settings". Next, click on "Library Links" in the left side of the page. Search for the "University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries". Select the check box next to our name and click save at the bottom of the page to apply the changes. The next time you search for resources a "UNLV Find Text" link will appear next to articles that you can access via the Libraries.

Use Time-saving Library Services

UNLV Interlibrary Loan: Use this account to get articles, books, and other resources from our interlibrary loan system that are not available through UNLV Libraries for free by logging in with your ACE account.

RefWorks: Software that will allow you to store, organize and format your research citations via the Internet automatically.

Google Scholar is a subset of Google that is designed to search for academic and scholarly articles and books online.

Research Consultations: Schedule a time that is convenient to discuss your research. Virtual research consultations.

Organizing Your Research Using RefWorks or Mendeley

What is RefWorks?
RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic software package that enables you to:

Organize your research
Create a bibliography in a variety of citation styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago
Import references from many data sources
Create bibliographies in different document formats (Word, RTF, HTML, etc.)
Include citations while you write your paper

New RefWorks tutorials (YouTube)

RefWorks
Good for: Saving, organizing and formatting citations in your personal database.
Contains: Bibliography manager.

This web-based bibliography manager lets you save citations to journal articles, books, web sites and more into your personal online database. You'll be able to quickly link to online articles, organize and share your references, and automatically create formatted bibliographies in all the major citation formats, including APA, MLA, and Chicago styles. Learn more on the RefWorks Basics page.

Couple & Family Therapy (CFT)