Finding Articles
Why Use Articles for Research?
Articles are often the best resources for research because
- they are current
- they cover very specific subjects
- they can be scholarly or popular
What Is An Index?
Indexes are used to find articles published in magazines, journals or newspapers about specific topics.
- All indexes contain article citations or basic information such as the title of the article, the author, journal, volume, issue, page number, and publication date.
- Some indexes also contain full text copies of articles.
- Indexes are also known as databases, abstracts, full text databases, article databases, or periodical indexes.
Choosing An Index
Many article databases, abstracts and periodical indexes are available. Each database or index covers a specific group of magazines, journals and/or newspapers. For example:
- Legal Collection provides article references to magazine and journal articles about law and legal related topics.
- Other article databases such as EBSCOHost's Academic Search Premier are general and cover many different subjects.
Accessing Indexes
On campus: All article databases are available from the library's home page by clicking on the "Articles" icon.
Off campus: Access to all article databases is purchased by our library, and these are ONLY available off campus through a home or remote access service to students, faculty and staff of UVSC. All UVSC indexes are available from off campus. You will be asked for your UVLink.
How Do You Use An Index?
Watch the demonstration about accessing and using indexes by following these instructions:
TO VIEW THE DEMONSTRATION:
Watch Demonstration |
Locating Articles that Aren't Full Text
If an index does not contain the full text of an article you want to use for your research, you can quite easily see if the UVSC Library has a subscription or electronic access to the journal.
- Go to the library's homepage (www.uvsc.edu/library).
- Click on the "Journals by Title" link on the library's homepage.
- Type the title of the magazine or journal (NOT the title of the article).
- You will see a the results of titles that match your search.
How Do You Find Articles in the Library?
Watch the demonstration about locating magazines and journals by following these instructions:
TO VIEW THE DEMONSTRATION:
Watch Demonstration |
If You Have Trouble Finding Articles
- Try different keywords. Remember that different keywords will give you different results.
- Try a different index. The library subscribes to several indexes, and some indexes have more full text articles than others. Also, indexes will include information from different publications, and searching another index may give you more articles from publications the library owns.
- Request articles through Interlibrary Loan. Articles not owned by UVSC can be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Ordered articles should arrive within 2-10 business days. This is a free service. Click on the "Interlibrary" button on the library's home page
Practice
Write down the answers for this assignment. You will be using them later to complete the exercise at the end of the tutorial.
- View the article demonstration.
- Go to the library's web site, and select an index for your subject.
- When you connect to an index, use your keywords to search for articles.
- Locate 1 article which has information related to your topic.
- Write down the article's title, author, magazine/journal title, volume, issue (if available) and page number for the library exercise.
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