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Finding Journal Articles

Why Journals?

Journals are ongoing publications issued with the same title (usually), on a regular or periodic basis, with no expected end to their publication (e.g. newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, annual reports).

Articles in journals contain specific analyses of particular aspects of a topic. Since journal articles can be published more quickly than books, they are a good source for the very latest available information on a topic. (Books usually cover a broader range of topics much more thoroughly.)

The two main types of journals are popular magazines and scholarly (academic) journals:

• Popular magazines: general news and information sources covering a broad subject area, intended for a general audience. The authors are usually staff writers or freelance journalists and writers working for the magazine.
• Scholarly journals or peer reviewed: usually written by academic scholars reporting the results of original experiments or research in a specific subject area.

For example, social science and medicine would publish an article by a researcher reporting the results of original experiments in technical detail written for other experts in the field. 

How do I Find Journal articles? 

To find a journal article by a particular author or on a certain topic:

1. Select an index or database of publications relevant to your topic.
2. Search the index for a citation to an article relevant to your topic; a citation lists the title, author, and subject(s) of an article and the journal in which the article was published.
3. Search the Journal Locator to see whether the library owns the journal or provides online access.

What are Periodical Indexes (or Databases)?

The library subscribes to many general and subject specific indexes, both in paper and online, in which you can find citations to articles by a particular author or on a certain topic. Usually the index will have a scope that defines what the index covers. This will include:

• The subject that the index covers
• A list of all the journals that the index covers (often in the thousands and usually includes all of the journals that are published in a given field)
• Sometimes they will cover just journals, though some also cover conference proceedings, thesis, book reviews, and chapters from edited themed books.
• Sometimes they will cover just articles that are relevant to the database from certain general science periodicals, (i.e. Science, nature, Scientific American, etc.)
• Years of coverage.

The way the indexes are created is that whenever a new issue of a journal that they cover comes out the index creators will create a bibliographic record for each article in the journal. This citation is designed to give you enough information about the article to determine if it will be of use to you.

• All indexes include citations to articles which list the title and author of each article indexed, and the title, specific issue, and page numbers of the journal in which it was published. This is the information that allows you to actually locate the article.
• Most indexes include a list of subject headings to indicate the main topics of each article.
• Some include an abstract, which is a brief description of the article.
• An increasing number of online databases also provide the full text of articles.

Remember the library subscribes to these databases, we do not produce them in-house (as we do for Consuls, the Library catalog). This means that the databases are NOT restricted to just journals that we own, rather most databases cover far more journals than we actually own. However many of the databases allow you to restrict your search to material that is actually owned by Buley. If you are trying to do a comprehensive literature search using these limits is a bad idea as in any given topic there is no guarantee that we own the most important journals. See below for info on how to get what we don't have. 

The Bibliographic Citation

Below is an example of a bibliographic citation from Medline. Things to pay attention to include:

• The title of the article, DO NOT use this to search Consuls or the Journal Locator, use:
• The Source, this is the name of the journal and it is what you will search in Consuls to determine if we actually own the journal, the source also includes the volume #(issue #): pagination, year and month of publication.
• The abstract is a summary of what the article is about, it is very rarely acceptable to use the abstract rather than getting the whole article.
• Also important are the Subject headings. For more on Subject headings.
• The language indicated what language the original paper is in. Most databases are international in scope and include many foreign language articles. We do not provide translations of articles so it is best to avoid these articles unless you can read the language or it is an absolutely vital paper (again the translation is yours to deal with). 

How to physically find the actual article

Once you have put together a list of all the articles you want it is time to actually go and get them. If you are lucky and the article is included in full text then all you have to do is print it out. But, at present, this will usually not be the case so you will have to seek out the paper copy. To find out if the Library owns the journal you need go to the library home page and connect to the Journal Locator. Type in the name of the journal (source, not the title of the article!!!)  and press search. You will then get either a record that indicates which databases have the title, if it is included in the SCSU Print and Microfilm Collection or you will get a screen that no results were found (this means we don't have the journal). Click through to a database to search for the full text of the article. If the journal is only in the Print and Microfilm Collection, click through to search the CONSULS catalog to be sure we have the needed year. You need to check the holdings box to determine if we actually have the issue you need. If so you can go downstairs to the periodical room and get the issue you need.  The journal may also be in microform (microfilm, or microfiche) rather than paper. Microform is also on the downstairs level and can be photocopied. If we do not own the journal then you can use the libraries Inter-Library loan system to order a photocopy of the article. Go to the library circulation desk and ask for an Inter-Library loan form, fill it in, and give it back to the circulation folks. It takes an average of ten days for the library to get the article to you and the service is free (you can even keep the copy!!!).

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