How to Find Articles in Scholarly Journals

What are Scholarly Journals?

How do I find Articles in Scholarly Journals?
Using a subject-specific database
Limiting a search in a general database

When to use Journal Finder

1. What are Scholarly Journals?

Scholarly journals, also called peer-reviewed, academic, refereed or professional journals, are a major source of information for research papers and projects.
Because articles in these journals represent the most recent research performed by scholars and scientists, it is important to consult them in addition to books.
At some point a professor may require you to use articles from scholarly journals rather than from general magazines or newspapers.

Characteristics that distinguish scholarly journals from popular or news magazines

Scholarly		News or Popular
Researcher or scholar in the field	Who wrote the article?	Journalist, freelance writer, editorial staff
Other scholars, professionals, or students in the field	Who is the intended audience?	General public
To report original research, experiments, or theories	What is the purpose of the publication?	To inform or entertain
Always have footnotes or bibliography	Does the author cite her sources?	Sources may be cited or identified, but usually not
A professional association or commercial enterprise	Who publishes it?	Commercial enterprise or an interest organization
Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Harvard Educational Review	Examples	Popular: People, Cosmopolitan, Jet; News or general interest: Nation, Newsweek, Time

2. How do I find Articles in Scholarly Journals?

There are two ways to use the library databases to locate articles in scholarly journals.

Using a subject-specific database
Limiting a search in a general database

Using a subject-specific database

To find scholarly journal articles on a particular topic:

Choose the most appropriate department on the Library's subject guide to databases
Read the descriptions provided for each database to help decide which one will be best for your topicsearch the database using keywords that describe your topic
Combine your keywords using search connectors (and, or)

Reference librarians will be glad to help you choose the best database and use it to find the information you need. Please visit us on the first floor of the Library whenever the Library is open, call us at 334-5419 or contact us via chat or email.

Limiting a search in a general database

You might prefer to use a general database rather than a subject-specific one. If you only need one or two articles on your topic, and you want to retrieve the full-text of the articles online, then a general database is your best bet. However, a lot of the information in general databases is NOT scholarly. So you have to LIMIT your search to only scholarly materials.

To find scholarly articles in a general database:

choose the most appropriate department on the Library's subject guide to databases, look for the "Full-Text Resources" section of the list, or read the database descriptions to identify which full-text database you want to use.

3. When to use Journal Finder

Once you have found the article that you need, your next question becomes: "Can I get this article?" Follow these steps to find out whether the article you need is available either online or in Jackson Library's collection.

Go to Journal Finder (available from the library homepage)
Type in the name of the journal you are looking for (not the title of the article!).
Journal Finder will tell you what kind of access we have:

	online access; clicking on the icon will show a complete list of all online options for access
	in the library in print; clicking on this icon will connect you to the library catalog which will tell you where the journal you need is located in the library

For journals not in our collection, Journal Finder gives convenient access to other options:

	document delivery of the article you need; clicking on the icon takes you to the document delivery options Infotrieve and Interlibrary Loan
	catalogs of other libraries in the region who might own the journal you need

If you have any questions about finding journal articles, please don't hesitate to ask us!