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Choosing an Article Database

Choosing the right article database can be tricky. Selecting the best database is dependent on several factors:

• The subject area of your topic
• The type of sources you need (magazines, journals, newspapers, books, etc.)
• How much you already know about the topic
• Dates of publication of the information you need

What is the subject of your topic?

In order to find a database that will have information about your topic, you should analyze your topic to decide what subject area is most likely to cover your topic.

• If your topic is broad, focusing your topic will help you retrieve the most relevant information.
• Determine what subject areas those writing about your topic are most likely to be associated. For example, is your topic of interest to medical professionals, educators, or scientists?

The Undergraduate Library's Find Articles Guide provides a good starting point for selecting databases. At the top of this page you will note some basic, general databases that are good for beginning research on almost any topic. Scrolling down this page you will see databases listed for a wide variety of subject areas. A much more comprehensive list of databases by subject is available through the Article Indexes and Abstracts option of the Online Research Resources.

Below is a sample of analyzing a broad topic - drugs - to determine in which subject or discipline database the information is likely to be found:

Once you have determined which subject area is appropriate for your topic, select a database(s) subject listings on the Undergraduate Library's Find Articles page. The brief descriptions of the databases will help you determine which are appropriate for your subject area or topic.

What kind of sources do you need?

Professors and instructors may put restrictions on the types of sources you can use for your assignments. You may be required to use only scholarly articles or limit the number of popular articles that you are able to use. General interest or newspaper databases tend to index more popular magazines than scholarly journals. For scholarly journal articles, you will need to search a discipline-based database or a subject-specific database.

For more information on scholarly vs. popular sources, see the Distinguishing Periodical Types: Is it a magazine or a journal? page.

How much do you know about your topic?

If you don't know much about your topic databases such as Academic Search Premier and Academic OneFile are good starting points. You are likely to find some articles about your topic written in easy-to-understand language in one of these databases.

Usually articles in subject-specific databases assume you have some background knowledge of the subject, and the articles often contain specialized language (jargon) that researchers in that field use. Unless you are familar with your topic and the terminology associated with it, you may find articles in subject-specific databases more challenging to read and understand. Articles in discipline-based databases will usually have less jargon, and those found in general interest databases will normally use common terms.

What are the dates of the information you need?

Many databases contain information dating back only to the early 1980s. If this is the case, you will need to carefully check the dates of coverage for any database you wish to search.  Dates of coverage for a particular database may be included on an entry page to a database. If this information isn't immediately evident, clicking on a database's help option with usually provide the dates of coverage for you.  Databases listed in the History section of the Find Articles Guide tend to include resources with earlier publication dates.

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For comments on this page contact: Undergraduate Library

Last modified by: Logan Moore on 1/28/09