Why use articles?
Why use articles for research?
- For very recent, current information
- Cover very specific subjects
- Popular topics
- Alternative viewpoints
- Reports on scholarly research
Approaches to finding articles
Broad-to-narrow search strategy: For news or research articles, start with multi-disciplinary databases and move on to subject specific databases.
Part of my research topic on Within our Gates has led me to an interest in what Sylvia experiences as she attempts to generate school funding for her school in the South during the Reconstruction era. And what research is being done today?
Open JSTOR for historical academic articles. Start with the key phrase reconstruction era.
1. Reconstruction era = 96,000+
2. Add school= 20,000
3. Add funding= 5000+
4. Limit to Journals = 3400
Article databases
While JSTOR has deep historical content, it can also contain fairly recent work that is five years old and older.
Nearly all of our other databases will contain more current research. The Ebsco databases allows users to search several databases simultaneously by accessing Academic Search Ultimate --Choose databases--> checkmark all:
ERIC, Education Source, Academic Search Ultimate, MasterFILE Premier
A search for public schools, funding inequity, and race produces research studies like this one:
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowAcademic Search Ultimate offers access to an unprecedented collection of resources including journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos. Many are peer-reviewed and full-text. Subjects range from astronomy to zoology.
- MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new windowProvides abstracts and indexing for 2,650 general periodicals. Full text of articles for nearly 2,000 periodicals, and 5,000 full text Magill Book Reviews.
- Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive database of humanities content, providing full text of hundreds of journals, books & other published sources from arount the world. This database includes data from American Humanities Index & Humanities International Index.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowElectronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published prior to the most current five years. Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Please note that this publisher is offering EXPANDED CONTENT through June 30, 2023.
Library databases:
A-Z list and by subject
Your topic may concern subject areas such as education, health, history, etc. You may consider searching within databases that contain articles that were published in subject-specific journals.
Find articles by journal title in WorldCat Discovery
As you review bibliographies, reviews of literature, and reference lists, you will discover additional sources to possibly use. In this case, you have a citation, but you need the article itself. Does our library have it?
Your citation:
Step one: search the journal title in WorldCat Discovery.
Step two: limit to journals in the facets on the left side of your results screen.
Step three: if we have the journal, it displays as SU Libraries Owns. Click into the record to see either electronic or print holdings.