Research Strategies: Interactive Tutorial

Module 3: Finding Periodical Articles Using Online Academic Databases

This unit focuses on three main aspects of using periodical articles as sources of information for research.

• Identifying periodicals appropriate for academic research.
• Using indexes to periodical articles to find articles on a particular topic.
• Citing sources as part of the research paper.

Identifying Periodicals Appropriate for Academic Research

Periodicals refer to publications that are published regularly, including magazines, scholarly journals, newspapers, and serials.

• Magazines are generally commercial, aimed at a general audience, and not written by experts.
• Journals publish scholarly research aimed at professionals, are written by experts in their fields, and are often reviewed or refereed by an author's peers before publication.
• Newspapers provide another form of documentation that is published regularly. The quality of newspaper accounts range from the prestigious daily New York Times to regional and local newspapers published weekly or monthly.
• Serials refer to journals appearing in successive parts, often published by organizations.

Assignment #1

Review Popular or Scholarly? Evaluating Periodical Literature for a further discussion of the differences between magazines and journals.

Indexes to Periodical Articles: Finding articles on a particular topic

Periodical indexes provide subject, author, and keyword access to the contents of periodicals. For example, to find articles about the poet Maya Angelou, search a periodical index for the subject Angelou, Maya. The index will provide a list of articles about the poet and include complete information for locating the articles. Periodical indexes are available in both paper and online formats. Online periodical indexes are also called databases. In some instances, online indexes may include the complete text of articles.

• General Indexes

General indexes are interdisciplinary and cover a broad range of topics. Academic libraries select indexes that index periodicals appropriate for academic-level research. These indexes may include some magazines (e.g., Time, Newsweek, etc.) and newspapers but also include many key journals from a wide range of subject areas (e.g., College Literature, Journal of Psychology, etc.).

The Mansfield Library subscribes to over 100 online indexes to periodical literature. Two of the general online indexes are Expanded Academic ASAP and Newsbank.

To connect to these resources, go to the Mansfield Library home page and select the Find Articles link. Note: To access these resources from any off-campus location you must first create a remote access account.

Expanded Academic ASAP indexes more that 1500 magazines and journals and includes the full contents of the articles for about 500 of these titles. It covers the time period of 1980 to the present. The subscription provides Web access and indexing is updated daily.

Newsbank is completely full-text and selectively indexes over 500 U.S. regional and national newspaper, 11 Canadian newspapers and a host of wire services and broadcasts. It covers the time period of 1991 to the present. The subscription provides Web access and indexing is updated daily.

Assignment #2

1. Open Expanded Academic ASAP. Complete a subject search on Presidential Election 2000. Identify the first full-text article. Beneath the publication information a link will read: View text and full content retrieval choices. Click on this link to see the complete article.
2. To the left of the screen select the e-mail option and mail this article to your own personal e-mail address. You may also print or download the article to a disk as a text file (filename.txt).
3. Open Newsbank. Complete a subject search on Presidential Election 2000. Beneath the search box, click the circle to return "most recent matches first." By reviewing the headlines, you can review the sequence of events in reverse chronological order. Newsbank is completely full text.
4. Select one of the articles and link to the full-text by clicking the underlined headlined. Click "Text only display." Save the article to disk: insert a disk into the hard drive; click file and save as in the drop-down menu; give the document a filename with a text designation (e.g., filename.txt); then save.
5. Record the citations for each article you selected in full text and send these citations to your instructor. Identify which one was selected from Expanded Academic ASAP and which one was selected from Newsbank.

• Subject-specific Indexes: Which one to use?

The nature of your topic and/or the extent of your research will dictate the most appropriate database(s). It is very useful to start with Expanded Academic ASAP to ascertain whether it adequately covers a topic and to identify key terms useful for your search in other databases.

To select subject-specific databases, click the Find Articles link from the library's home page. Use the Subject List of Databases from the left-hand side of the page to select a subject area(s) of interest. Click on the subject to view a list of databases specific for that subject. Once you select a database, further details about the database are available at the database homepage.

For example, click on the Find Articles link from the library's home page. Under Subject List of Databases, click on the Literature/Language/Linguistics link to view a list of databases appropriate for research in the areas of Literature, Language, and Linguistics.

Assignment #3

Identify a database related to your area of study. Record the following information about the database: years of indexing and general topic information. Review the journal title list for the database. Complete one search in the database and record the information for finding two articles on your topic. Send this information as an e-mail to your instructor.

Citations

The location information for finding articles is referred to as a periodical citation and includes the author of the article, date, article title, periodical title, volume(number), and pages.

Example of a magazine article citation:

Walker, Pierre A. 1995. Racial protest, identity, words and form in Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' College Literature, 22(3):91- 109.

Citing Sources

Research papers include a Literature Cited or Bibliography section at the end to identify the sources used in gathering information about the topic of the paper. There are three main styles for citing information. Check with your instructor to determine which style is preferred.

Refer to: Literature Cited for details to complete your bibliography.

Assignment #4

Select one of the styles for citing information. Using the articles identified in Assignment #2 for this module, edit the information and create a bibliography to conform to this style. Identify whether the articles are from popular or scholarly sources and write a brief description why. Submit your article descriptions and bibliography as an attachment to your e-mail and send to your instructor.

Module 3 Exam

 

         

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Last Updated: 03.18.02
Comments: Instructors