WR3 | Workshops

Finding Periodicals & Electronic Databases

Periodicals are publications that are published at regular intervals, such as scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers. Examining periodicals—especially academic journals—is an important aspect of research.

Since books often take a year or more to go through the process of peer review, editing, typesetting, and printing before they become available for purchase, they often do not contain the most current information. Articles, on the other hand, appear in a far shorter period of time and generally contain the most up-to-date research. For that reason, you should perform a review of journal articles on your research topic to ensure that you are aware of recent discoveries, arguments, and debates within the academic community who share your research focus.

However, a common problem for undergraduate researchers is not knowing which databases or journals are appropriate to search in for information on a particular topic. Without specialized training in a particular field, it is often very difficult to know where you begin your search. Even the best search terms in the world will not produce good results if you are searching for articles in the wrong place. This would be akin to hunting for alligators in the arctic or going fishing in the Sahara.

There is no shame in experiencing confusion about this: unless you are a professional scholar, it is difficult to know what the leading journals or databases are in a particular field of study. Even skilled researchers performing research outside of their areas of expertise face this issue. For example, an English professor would know that the academic journal PMLA or the database JSTOR are excellent places to look for articles on Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, but a physicist might not know where to begin.

Luckily there is a solution to this problem: our library has organized the periodical databases by discipline in the Database Finder. You may select a discipline or subject topic from a dropdown list called “Subjects” to reveal the organized list of the relevant databases. You may also browse alphabetically if you know the name of the database you are looking for.

Database Guide

There are thousands of academic databases. Each database contains some number of academic journals. Some databases are only indexes, which provide a list of a publication; however, many databases provide the full text of the publication as well. Some databases are massive, multidisciplinary behemoths; others are narrow boutiques that cater to very specific scholarly interests. As you specialize during your university education, you will undoubtedly become aware of the most important journals and databases for your particular course of study. What I have provided below is a curated list that offers an excellent place to start. That sounds rather modest, but in truth these listed resources will get you very, very far.

Some individual journals are available in multiple database products. In other cases, however, a specific journal may only be available in a single database. So it will pay to search in several relevant electronic databases to ensure you are viewing all the scholarship that is available on a particular topic. This balkanization, or fracturing, of the information space is similar to what happens with online streaming services. You might be able to get one show or movie on Hulu, but need to purchase Apple+ to see others. See this article on for-profit academic publishing for more infuriating information on this topic.

How to Locate a Database

Navigate to these databases from the library website home page by selecting Databases beneath the search field. Alternatively, you may navigate to the Database Finder by following Home > Find > Search and Browse > Databases.

Workshop

Checklist

• Test yourself by trying to locate several of the curated databases, starting from the library’s home page.

• Use the Database Finder to locate a new database in a discipline that interests you.

• Each database is unique, so you will have to familiarize yourself with how it works. Open up several databases in separate browser tabs to allow for quick comparison. Poke around a bit and get the lay of the land. Get to know these databases by using a keyword search string that you associate with your research project. Use the same search strings in each of the databases and see how the results differ.

• Take some time to explore in this garden of delights.

Things to notice

• We’ve learned about the power and necessity of Boolean searches. Notice how many databases offer a way to build a complex Boolean search by placing terms in separate search boxes.

• Many databases offer additional search limiters (generally located in the left pane as a series of check boxes) that allow you to further refine your searches. For example, I highly recommend that you check the limiter that ensures you only receive peer-reviewed sources. You may also select to receive only full-text sources or just books and articles, not newspapers or reviews. There are many options to play with to massage your search results and produce more precise results. Try to refine your search terms with this feature in each of the databases and see what happens.

• The Web of Science database offers the ability to perform what is sometimes called a “citation chase,” where you may systematically examine all of an article’s citations as well as all of the articles that cite it—a critical research skill that I reference in the Introduction to Academic Research. This sort of labor can rapidly increase your collection of relevant sources.