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Journals range from popular to scholarly/academic. There are
features
of an academic journal that you should be familiar with.
To find journal
articles for an essay or assignment you will need to use
a Library database.
Library databases provide access to journal and newspaper
articles and may also include conference papers, electronic
books, theses, statistics, company information, country and
industry data, and legal information such as case law, legislation
and commentary.
Library databases can be searched by keywords, title, author, subject and publication title.
The search type you choose affects the results you and get because they each search the keywords in different parts of a database record.
When you have an assignment topic, you would use a keyword search.
Use the following steps to find journal articles
for an assignment:
- Choose a Library database
- Search a database
- Locate the fulltext of a journal article
This module will take you through each step
of this process.
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Choose a
database
Select a database that is appropriate
for your assignment
When selecting a database consider that databases
cover different topic areas, geographic regions
and time periods. The Library has over 200
subject specific and multidisciplinary databases. Multidisciplinary
databases cover many topic areas.
Use the information provided in the Notes
column to decide if a particular database is relevant
to your topic. Check the subject coverage, date range
and geographic coverage. Also check the information
icon  for
additional details.
You will usually need to search a number
of databases to find a range of information sources for an assignment. View demonstration or download the pdf.
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Search a database
The Library subscribes to many databases. They are very large, containing references
to many thousands of journal articles. You will need to learn to use various search interfaces. To save time and to
locate relevant articles it is important to plan your
search.
To effectively search a database you will need
to:
- Identify keywords and alternative keywords from
the topic. Revise identifying
keywords earlier in this module.
- Develop a search strategy using connectors
such as AND and OR. Revise using connectors.
- Truncate key terms to identify alternate word endings where appropriate (eg. child* will locate child,
children, childless, childish). Symbols vary between databases.
- After you have searched you will need to evaluate your results for relevance and quality. Depending on your evaluation you may need to modify your search strategy.
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View a database search which uses the above search techniques:
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Need further help using a database?
When you need to find articles for an assignment,
use this planner
to assist you to record a search strategy. For legal research, use the
Legal Research Strategy planner.
Help about using various databases is available from the
Database
Tips webpage and for additional information, refer to the Databases Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs) page.
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Locate the fulltext of
a journal article
Some databases provide the fulltext (complete
article) while others provide the citation and abstract
only.
When a database only provides a citation or abstract, you
need to search the Library catalogue to check
if the Library has access to the fulltext. Below is an example
of a citation from the ProQuest database which provides the
abstract only. View demonstration or download pdf.
Print (hardcopy) journals
Some local libraries will have print (hardcopy) journal
collections. Check your
local library to see if it has print journals and how
you can search for these. Choose one example below how you
can locate print journals.
You have now completed Module 3. Move on to Module
4 Plagiarism
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