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UIUC Library

Finding Journal Articles in the Social Sciences

Finding journal articles is a difficult and often confusing task in a library system with over 40 departmental libraries and reading rooms, access to hundreds of article databases and a multitude of online and print resources. This tutorial will help to organize your thoughts and speed you through the maze. For more in-depth research help, stop in the Education and Social Science Library (room 100, Main Library), email us at educlib@uiuc.edu, or phone us at 333-2305.

Determine search strategy | Choose a database | Search for relevant articles | Locate journal articles | Glossary of terms |

1. Determine your search strategy:

Step 1: Choose the topic. Example: "Internet"

Step 2: Narrow down your topic. Example: "How does the internet affect mental health?"

Step 3: Decide on search terms. "internet" "mental health"

2. Choose an article database

The UIUC Library system has access to hundreds of article databases via the UIUC Library's Online Research Resources database. In addition, each departmental library has a homepage with links to the most common databases in their particular disciplines. The Education and Social Science Library homepage has links to frequently used article databases in the social sciences like ERIC, PsycInfo, and International Political Science Abstracts. You can also access recommended databases by disclipline using the subject links along the left hand side of the page.

General databases: cover a wide variety of topics
Expanded Academic Index, Periodical Abstracts

Discipline-specific databases: cover many subject areas within a particular academic discipline
Sociological Abstracts (criminal justice, social welfare, sociology)

Subject-specific databases: cover one specific subject area
ERIC (education), PsycInfo (psychology)

3. Search an article database for relevant articles

After you choose an article database(s), you need to search for relevant articles. Here are some tips:

Step 1: Type your search term or terms

Step 2: Refine search as needed to find more or fewer articles. See " Refining Your Search" for guidelines on this process.

Step 3: Print, save to a disk or email citations of relevant articles

Step 4: Evaluate results and revise as needed

Step 5: Locate journal articles in the library

4. Locate journal articles

This is often the most difficult step. After you have found the articles that you want, there are three ways to find journal articles:

* Please Note: The Education and Social Science Library organizes their journals alphabetically by title. However, we generally keep only the most recent three to ten years (depending on the title) and put older volumes in the main stacks.

Glossary

Citation: The relevant information about an article, including journal name (sometimes called "source"), date and volume number, and page numbers.
Ex. The Dynamics of Latino Political Incorporation: The 2001 Los Angeles Mayoral Election as Seen in Los Angeles Times Exit Polls. Ps: Political Science & Politics. v. 35 no1, Mar. 2002, p. 67-74.

Database: A database is a collection of organized data that a person can use to quickly retrieve information. A database can be as simple as rolodex of recipes, or as sophisticated as Illinet, the online catalog. Most of the UIUC Library databases are electronic periodical indexes of citations, abstracts, or full-text periodical articles from journals, newspapers, historical documents, or other literary works. It is important to remember that although full-text databases offer quick and easy access to articles, they generally do not offer access to as many different journals as indexes and abstracts. Therefore, coverage is usually far less than what is found in database indexes and abstracts.

Magazine vs. academic (or scholarly) journal: Magazines are popular journals that DO NOT CITE THEIR SOURCES. So while they are good sources for background material, you should not expect them to provide you with bibliographies or other cited works for additional reference. Examples of popular journals would include such publications as Time, Newsweek, US News and World Reports and Vogue. Scholarly journals publish articles written by specialists and experts doing original research within a particular field of study whose information and data have been extensively checked and documented with bibliographies of resources included. Many scholarly journals are peer-reviewed (also known as refereed). If a scholarly article has been peer-reviewed, that means it has gone through a process in which a panel board of experts (usually other academics) have reviewed its contents and decided it was acceptable for publication. Examples of peer-reviewed journals include Governance, Journal of Comparative Psychology, Journal of Anthropological Research, Journal of European Social Policy, and Journal of Experimental Education.

Periodicals: Periodicals (also known as serials) are publications printed "periodically", either daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or on an annual basis. The terms periodical, serial, magazine, and journal, are often used interchangeably; however, there are discernable differences among them. Regardless of how they are referred to, the most important thing you will need to know about periodicals is how to evaluate one type from another. (see "Magazine vs academic journal" above).