Mary Abdoney
W&L Research -- Periodicals and Article Databases
How can you find out which periodicals to which we have direct access?
- Consult the A-Z Journal List on the library home page. (Please note that this option is mislabeled; the list includes more than journals.)
Scholarly/academic/Peer-Reviewed Journals
Most scholarly/academic journal articles are consistenty structured, as in these two examples: A Double Standard for Hooking Up and It's Dude Time. Note that the first article includes a clearly-labeled literature review, while the second has no such labeling.
If you need to determine whether or not a given periodical (journal or magazine) is a "scholarly" or "academic" resource, you can search for information on that periodical in the Ulrichsweb directory.
Here, "Content Type" may be described as "Academic / Scholarly" and the status of the journal as "Refereed" (or peer-reviewed) may be indicated by this charming icon: 
An example of a journal rating system based on citation analysis from Google Scholar -- Google Scholar Metrics.
So desirable are academic journals as publishing opportunities for scholarly researchers that there is a small industry devoted to bogus journals. Until recently, a researcher at the University of Denver maintained a list of predatory journals that offer to publish articles for a hefty fee.
Paying for Quality
Part of the reason that academic libraries are so focused on academic journals is their pricing.
Coming Attractions
Preliminary versions of articles which might end up published in academic journals often appear as working papers or conference papers. Example of a conference paper found in a database search:
- The Evolving Image of U.S. Business in Chinese News Coverage, 1979-2010 (which likely led to this article)
Collections of working papers are available from some scholarly associations and academic institutions. Examples:
In the era of the Internet and the hyperactive news cycle, some academic researchers are feeling pressured to "go public" quickly -- maybe too quickly. Fascinating article: Politics Moves Fast. Peer Review Moves Slow. What’s A Political Scientist To Do?
Increasingly, scholarly researchers are turning to online sites to get their work in the public eye. One example is The Conversation.
Searching Backward and Forward
Some databases of academic journal articles now let you see not only the sources cited in an article, but also the sources that have (later) cited that article.
Probably the best tool for tracing subsequent citations is Google Scholar, with this example.
Academic/Scholarly Journal Articles
These are "article databases" which specialize in in-depth coverage of a particular discipline or subject area, with an emphasis on scholarly and/or professional journal articles, although other types of materials are mentioned -- books, essays, reports and papers, dissertations and theses, Web sites, etc. Important article databases are collected in the library's Subject and Course Guides area.
Listed below are some of the most important specialized databases for journalism/ mass communications/strategic communications students.
The library's new Primo database includes the ability to find articles in academic journals, newspapers, and magazines, but (a) there is reason to doubt that it contains everything found in our individual databases and (b) the results from searches tend to be overwhelming and unfocused.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Excellent starting point. Multidisciplinary article database offers access to more than 16,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers, including over 15,000 peer-reviewed journals.
- Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides citations to over 600 journals in communication, mass media, and related fields, as well as books, reports, dissertations, and other resources. Includes full-text articles from over 500 journals.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
The world's most comprehensive source for bibliographic coverage of psychology and behavioral sciences literature. Subjects covered include education, linguistics, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, physiology, psychiatry, sociology, and other areas.
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive coverage of sociology and its sub-disciplines, with very good coverage of related areas of study, especially politics. In addition to full-text journals, it contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895.
- Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection This link opens in a new window
Coverage of "emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry and psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods." Full-text coverage of 570 journals and magazines, of which 551 are peer-reviewed.
- Legal Collection This link opens in a new window
Full-text content of more than 250 of the world's most respected scholarly law journals, covering "issues, studies, thoughts and trends of the legal world" -- constitutional law, criminal justice, environmental law, commercial law, ethical issues, etc. Chronological coverage varies among sources, with some extending back to the early 1990's.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Business Source covers business journals, magazines, and newspapers. About 7,000 publications, over 2,000 of which are peer-reviewed journals, as well as other resources, including financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more. You might try changing the "select a field" drop-down menu to "CO Company Entity" before searching for a company name.
- ABI/INFORM Complete This link opens in a new window
A leading index and abstracting service for business and management, and it provides indexing and abstracts to articles from thousands of business and management publications. Many articles are available in full-text. Abstracting coverage begins with 1971.
- EconLit This link opens in a new window
EconLit, published by the American Economic Association, provides bibliographic coverage of a wide range of economics-related literature. It is an expanded version of the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) covering both economic theory and application, and indexes journal articles, working papers, books, articles (chapters) in collective works, and dissertations.
- Scopus This link opens in a new window
Described as the largest citation-and-abstract database in the world, Scopus features broad coverage of scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences literature, as covered in about 14,000 peer-reviewed resources, as well as academic Web sites from the Scirus database. Scopus also functions as a citation-indexing tool.
- Education Research Complete This link opens in a new window
Scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education, including "all levels of education from early childhood to higher education, and all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education, and testing." Full-text content from more than 950 journals, plus indexing of over 1,800 additional journals, some back to the 1980's. Other materials includes full-text conference papers, books, and monographs.
- ERIC This link opens in a new window
The link above takes users to the free, public-domain form of the database which is the largest education database in the world.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A digital archive of over 1,100 important scholarly journals. All issues of each journal are included in full-text except for the most recent 2-to-5 years, based on JSTOR's agreement with the journal's publisher.