Here you will find information about searching for academic articles, which can be found in databases. Remember, if you find an article that isn't available through the library, you can always request a copy through interlibrary loan!
When searching in the library databases, you should come up with keywords for your research question. Keywords are made up of the most important concepts in your research question.
For example, if my research question is "How does technology affect children?" I can use "technology" "children" and "affect" as my keywords.
Tips:
We have a full list of databases available here, but you can also limit this page to just show databases on a particular subject by using the "Subjects" dropdown at the top left of the list.
If your topic doesn't fit into a specific subjects, here are a few databases that are a good place to start researching:
Some databases come from the same companies/vendors and share search functionality. This means you can search in database groups with multiple subject matters instead of one at a time, making searching faster, easier, and more comprehensive. This is a good tip for research that touches multiple subjects. Expect a higher amount of results when searching - use filters and best search practices to further limit search results if too many are returned.
Gale Powersearch (searches over 35 Gale databases covering a variety of subjects).
Proquest (searches Boston Globe, Coronavirus Research Database, Ebook Central, Publicly Available Content Database, and Science Database)
Ebsco (includes CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750, Exploring Race in Society, GreenFILE, Teacher Reference Center, and SocINDEX with Full Text).
The links at the top of the page in the databases may not work later if you save or bookmark them in your browser. Instead, look for the buttons marked "Bookmark" or "Permalink" and click these buttons for a more reliable link (see image files below for where these are located).
If you cannot find these buttons, you can also email yourself a copy of the article to ensure you can find it again, or save the citation information and ask a librarian for help.
Gale Example:
EBSCO Example:
Scholarly articles are those which have undergone peer review, a process where other academics and experts in the field read over the paper and offer suggestions to improve it before publication. This is done to ensure that published articles are accurate, high quality, and useful to the academic discourse.
Many of the library databases allow you to limit your search results to only peer-reviewed articles or journals. Check the search options in the Advanced Search (or, depending on the database, in the filter menu once you create a search) and select the option for "Peer-reviewed".
For a more detailed explanation on what the peer review process entails, check out the article What is peer review? from The Conversation.
The Mondor-Eagen Library purchases many databases that contain peer-reviewed content. Note that none of the databases contain only peer-reviewed content, so it's important to choose your database and appropriate filters carefully. On the databases page, filter the list by subject of interest, read the descriptions for each database, as they will tell you what kind of material they contain.
Scholarly articles will often look different from other types of sources you may have seen before. Here are some sections you may see in a scholarly article that are useful to skim when choosing an article to use for your project:
Abstract - The abstract is a one paragraph summary of the article. It's a good idea to read this section of the article first to determine if the article is relevant to your research.
Literature Review - This section goes through previous research on the topic to give you some background knowledge. Often, it's a good idea to find the full-text of some of the sources mentioned here, as they usually feature important research on your topic.
Method - This section is mostly seen in science or medical articles, and will go over the details of the experiment the authors did. This is a useful section of the paper to look at if you're looking for research on a specific method or intervention, or if you want to analyze the study's validity.
Conclusion - The conclusion is usually the last section of the paper, and will summarize the findings of the research and what the authors learned.
Still unsure? Any peer-reviewed article should have some indicator that it has undergone the peer-review process, whether it is at the top of the page alongside publisher or author information or in a database where you've limited results to only peer-reviewed content. When in doubt, you can look up the official website of the publishing journal and under the "About" section, or some equivalent, it should have information on the type of material it publishes.