Introduction to Journals
and Article Indexes
Concepts covered:
One of the big differences between high school and university essay research is that,
as a university student, you are normally required to use journal articles when
researching your essays. In some courses, you may be required to use only
journal articles in your essay research; for example, the sciences.
Journal, periodical, newspaper, magazine, bulletin, e-journal, e-zine,
newsletter, serial – they all refer to literature that is published in serial
form or periodically. This may be every day for newspapers, once a week for news
magazines, once a month for many popular magazines, once every two or three or more months for
many scholarly journals, etc. There are well over 1,000,000 periodicals being published in the world today
– in all disciplines, countries, languages, and formats, including on the
Internet.
For many topics, researchers prefer to publish their findings in journal articles rather than
write books. They can get their research out to the public in a matter of weeks
in journal form rather than years in book form. Also, they may not have enough
research to fill an entire book so a shorter journal article provides an
efficient means of getting their research findings out to other researchers and
the general public. For all
disciplines, journal articles provide you with the most up-to-date research on a
topic. Return to
top.
A.
PARTS OF A JOURNAL
The Library has journals on paper in the periodicals collection, on microfilm and
microfiche, in newspaper format, and online. Browse any issue of any journal,
and you will probably see that the following information is contained in it:
Full title of the journal. Look on the front cover, the spine or
in the Table of Contents.
Date of issue (May 2005; August 12, 1999; Spring 2002; Spring/Summer
2004). The date gives you some idea of how often a journal is
published. May 2005 indicates the journal is published monthly; August 11,
2003 indicates the journal is published more frequently than once a month, hence the
day is given. And Autumn 2003 indicates that the journal is published once a
season or four times a year.
Volume and issue numbers (see front cover, spine, or Table of Contents
page). The volume number often indicates the number of years a journal has
been published. Once all the issues of a particular volume arrive, the
Library usually binds them into a bound volume.
Table of Contents. See the front cover, back cover, or inside
front cover, etc., to find the Table of Contents.
Author(s) of an Article. There may be more than one author
because researchers frequently work in teams.
Title of an Article. Article titles are often detailed and
descriptive because the authors know you will probably find the article searching for
keywords in an electronic database. Accordingly, the titles have many keywords
which can give you a good idea of what the article will say.
Page Numbers of an Article. What is the first page number given in
your issue? Sometimes the first page is 596 or some such number. The publishers
of the journals know that libraries will bind the issues
into a bound volume at the end of the year. It is helpful to readers to have the
numbering of the issues in each bound volume appear consecutively from the first
page of the first issue to the last page of the last issue, just like regular
books.
Except for the Table of Contents, all the information noted above comprises
the journal article citation. All the information in the journal citation is
needed for you to find the article, or for the library staff to find the article
from another library on your behalf. Also, the journal citation is needed for
your essay footnotes and bibliography. Return to
top.
B. HOW DO YOU FIND ARTICLES ON A TOPIC?
Your instructor may give you an article citation or a photocopy of an
article on your topic.
You hear about a recently published article in the media, and you decide
to pursue it.
You browse a magazine in a discipline and happen upon a good article on a
topic that appeals to you.
An article is referred to in the footnotes or bibliography of another
article or book.
You use an article index to point you to the various articles that have
been published on your topic. Return to
top.
C.
SELECTING ARTICLE/JOURNAL INDEXES
When you need to find journal articles on a topic, ask the reference librarian for
help. The librarian will ask you some questions about your topic so that he or
she
can identify the correct article index to use for that topic. There are hundreds
of article indexes available. Some scan journals in a specific discipline, like Psychological
Abstracts or ASFA Aquatic Sciences. Some scan journals from a specific
country or geographic area, like Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA
Complete).
Some scan only in one language, like Academic Search Elite, while some are
multi-lingual or multi-national in scope, like Ingenta. All generally
cover only the articles published within a specified period of time. Be prepared for
the fact that the librarian may take you to more than one article index to
ensure that all aspects of your topic will be covered.
An article index does for articles what a catalogue does for books and a
search engine does for websites: an article index points you to articles that
have been published on your
topic.
Malaspina Library has access to over 100 different article indexes, on a variety of
disciplines and for several geographical areas, including international coverage
for certain disciplines. Article indexes come in a variety of formats, just like the
journals – in paper format, online, CD-ROM, microformat, from the Internet,
etc. Once you know how to use and decipher one article index, you can usually
handle another with only minimal instruction. They all pretty much operate
the same way. As the journals come out periodically, so too, do the indexes that provide access to
articles within their stated scope. Return to
top.
D. USING GENERAL ARTICLE INDEXES
To get to the article indexes from the Library’s
homepage, click on
Search for Resources, and then Full Service MARLIN (Login).
Log in to MARLIN by entering your library card number and the PIN assigned
to you by the Library, and click on Login to Full Service MARLIN. You will be taken
to the Library's catalogue search command screen, and have access to all our
licensed databases. Click on the hyperlink called Articles and
Databases from the blue banner.
Access to the Library’s online article indexes can be made from this screen.
You need to choose an index that covers the topic in which you are
interested. Normally, at this point, you would ask the reference librarian to
suggest the best index to use.
WebCat
® Online Public Access Catalog © Sirsi Corporation
For purposes here, you will be using a general
index which covers many subjects. Click on All Subjects for a list of the
general indexes available, partially displayed below:
WebCat
® Online Public Access Catalog © Sirsi Corporation
Access to a number of general article indexes is now possible.
Academic Search Elite is published in the USA, and
provides citations to articles with an American perspective (although some Canadian and
British journals are also indexed). Academic Search Elite covers over
4,200 mostly US
journals, from 1984 to the present date. CBCA Complete covers articles published in over 600
Canadian journals and several newspapers, in French and English, from 1982 to the
present date. It is updated regularly. It is a good journal index for
Canadian topics and for the Canadian perspective on a wide variety of topics of
both national and international interest.
Several other general article indexes are also worth noting here.
ArticleFirst provides citations to articles
in over 12,000 journals, mostly American from 1990 to present date. Blackwell Synergy
provides indexing and the full text to over 700 scholarly journals.
Before you use an index, you want to make sure that it covers the subject,
country of origin, language and time frame in which you are interested.
For example, if
you were looking for articles published in the 1960s, none of these four indexes would be useful. For older materials not indexed in the
electronic article indexes, ask the librarian to help you use article indexes in
printed form covering the time frame in which you are interested. The reference librarian
is available in person, by telephone
at 250-740-6151, via email at reference@mala.bc.ca,
and through instant chat AskAway at
http://www.askaway.org.
This Research Tutorial will describe how to use Academic
Search Elite in detail. Click on Academic Search Elite from
the All Subjects subheading.
Should you prefer an animated
tutorial instead of this text version, click on
Introduction
to Academic Search Elite from the
Basic
Research Tutorials menu page. Return to
top.
E. SEARCHING BY KEYWORDS IN
Academic Search Elite
Your sample topic will be "the effects animal companions have on one's
mental health."
There are several ways you could search for this topic in Academic
Search Elite (ASE). You could do a
simple keyword search, a title search, an author search, or a subject search.
Since it is unlikely that you would know any authors or titles of journal articles on this topic nor
the correct subject headings used in this index for this topic, it is best to
start out with a Basic or keyword search using the most significant keywords from your
topic, being:
animal companions or pets or animals or dogs or cats or birds
mental health or mental illness
Remember to keep a list of all the possible keywords you might use as you
proceed with your research, and to add
to this list as you find new ones during your research.
Let's experiment with "pets and mental health" as the first Basic or keyword search.
Leave all other settings and choices as they are and click on the grey Search button.
The database responds by reporting that there are 21 articles (as at
the date this tutorial was written) that contain both keywords "pets" and "mental health"
in the citation, partially displayed below:
Of course, you are hoping
that these articles will discuss the effects of pets on human mental health, but
you must also be prepared that some may discuss the mental health of pets!
Notice the subject headings in the yellow frame to the left of the citations.
These can be used to narrow (human-animal relationships) or broaden (pets) your
topic.
As you scan down this list of citations, you note that Citation
10 looks particularly promising.
We have three options at this point.
We can review the long record with subject headings by clicking on the hyperlinked
article title "The Healing Power of Pets." We can also access
the full text of this article in HTML or PDF formats. Let's look at the
long record first by clicking on the hyperlinked title:
____________________________________________________________________________________
This article was published in the March/April 2001 issue of Psychology
Today, a popular psychology journal for the layperson. Look closely at the subject terms assigned to this citation.
It looks like Human-animal relationships might be a useful subject heading
for our topic. We should note this down for future reference.
This long record also gives us an abstract telling us what the article is
about. In addition, since the full text for this article is also in
this database, the HTML version of it appears below the long record.
Since the full text for the article is copyright protected, only the first
several lines of it have been reproduced here. However, the full text
in its entirety is available from this screen in the actual database.
Citation 10 provides us with two ways to see the full text, in HTML and
PDF formats.
The HTML format is like the full text partially displayed above - all the
words from the original article are given with the illustrations, if any, but
they do not appear the way the do in the actual printed article.
The PDF version of the article appears exactly as it does on
the printed page of the journal, complete with eye-catching headings, other articles, and
advertisements (if any). Return to
top.
We will now examine how we can print, email and save to
diskette both HTML and PDF documents.
F. Printing HTML Documents
You can easily print HTML documents, if your computer is connected to a
printer, by using the print command available from your File menu in the
browser's tool bar:
If you print from a Nanaimo
Library
computer, the pages can be accessed via the Print Station for a cost of 10 cents
per
black and white page (make sure you select the black and white printer from the
print command screen). Library staff will help you with this function.
Students printing at the Cowichan and Powell River campus libraries may pick
up and pay for their printing from the Service Desk.
You may also print an HTML article by clicking on the Print
icon available from just below the EBSCOhost banner:
When you do, the Print Manager screen is displayed:
Leave the HTML Full Text default as is. In this
database, you may also choose how you want your citation to appear from a
selection of six style guides. APA is a very popular style guide used
at Malaspina. Then click on the grey Print button. The database will format the
document for printing, and then you will have to activate the Print function
from the browser's File command menu.
Frankly, you may just as well print HTML documents
directly from the browser's File/Print command as discussed above, and save
yourself a couple of clicks. Return to
top.
G. Emailing HTML Documents
It is very easy to email an HTML document to your email
account for printing later. You do this by clicking on the E-Mail icon
from under the EBSCOhost banner:
Doing so displays the Email Manager screen where you can add your email address
and a subject line for easy reference later:
Leave the other default choices as is, but you may want to select the style
guide, in this case, APA. Click on the Send button.
Return to
top.
H. Saving an HTML Document to Diskette
Lastly, you may elect to save the full text from an HTML
document to a diskette, a memory stick, or your U drive if you have a Discovery
account. You do this by clicking on the save
icon available from just below the EBSCOhost banner. This displays the Save Manager
screen:
The database will make three default choices for you which
will ensure that the full record and the full text of the article get saved.
Again, you can select the style guide you want to use.
Then click on the grey Save button. The database will
format the document for saving, and present you with the following screen
containing your document and some instructions to select FILE then SAVE AS
from your browser's toolbar.
Frankly, as with printing, you can skip a couple of steps by going to the
browser's File/Save As command directly:
The Save As command screen will be displayed for you to make
several choices:
If you want to save the document on a diskette, choose the
A: drive. If you have a Discovery student account and you are on campus when
you are doing this work, you may also elect to save the document to your U:
drive. Give the article a distinctive name, and select the Web Page,
complete Save as type. This will ensure that the saved document looks
exactly like it did in the database.
Return to
top.
I. Printing PDF Documents
PDF documents require Adobe Acrobat software in order to be
displayed. Adobe Acrobat requires that you use the Adobe tool bar
commands for printing, emailing and saving PDF documents. The Adobe
Acrobat tool bar appears just above the PDF article.
The Adobe Acrobat print icon will elicit the correct print command box for you
to complete, ensuring that you send the print job to the correct printer
(either black and white or the colour printer if you are printing from the
Nanaimo Library).
Return to
top.
J. Emailing PDF Documents
When you want to email a PDF document to yourself, be sure to use the E-mail
icon from just above the Adobe Acrobat toolbar.
When you do so, you will be presented with a choice of how you want the article
to be emailed to you: via a link to the URL or the entire PDF document as an
attachment. If your emailer can handle large attachments, select that
mode. If not, choose the URL link instead.
When you choose the Send Link mode, the database will present you with an email
message ready to be addressed to your email account with a complex enduring
URL hyperlink to the full document embedded in the message box.
When you select Send Copy, the email message will have the PDF document
attached ready for you to address the email to yourself:
Return to
top.
K. Saving PDF Documents
Again, like with printing PDF documents, use the Adobe
Acrobat Save icon from the Adobe tool bar (it looks like a diskette) when
you want to save a PDF document:
The Save in command box will be displayed for you to complete with the correct
default options selected:
Return to
top.
L. Where Can I Get This Item?
Let's look at one more citation from our list by clicking on the Result
List hyperlink from the Full Display screen. We will examine Citation 16 in
more detail by clicking on the hyperlinked titled:
The full text for this citation is not available in this database. We need
to click on the "Where Can I Get This Item?" hyperlink.
The computer will begin searching a list of library holdings to see if Malaspina
has a subscription to this journal:
We wish to thank the Open
Learning Agency for their permission to use screen captures from the Electronic
Library Network throughout this tutorial.
While this article is not available online, Malaspina does
own a subscription to the needed journal, and our
holdings are listed, as illustrated above. However, it is necessary to
compare the needed issue, being Vol. 149 Issue 1, to the issues we own. This article was
published in 1994, but Malaspina's holdings do not begin until January 2001;
therefore, while Malaspina has some of the journal in the Nanaimo
periodicals collection at call number T55 A1 S34, it doesn't have the issue
we need here.
You now have to decide whether or not you have enough time
to wait for a photocopy of this article to arrive from another library via
interlibrary loan services, which usually takes from two to three
weeks. If so, then you would click on the Check other library
catalogues or request an Interlibrary Loan hyperlink to begin the request. When you do, an intermediary screen
will be displayed:
Lastly, click on the Place an Interlibrary Loan request
hyperlink. Because Malaspina holds some issues of the needed journal,
a warning screen will be displayed, asking you to check the holdings again
before proceeding with the ILL request:
Since we have already checked the holdings and ascertained
that the needed issue is not at Malaspina, we may click on the Continue
button to proceed with the ILL request. This warning screen is only
displayed when Malaspina owns at least some of the needed journal's
issues.
Return to
top.
M. Interlibrary Loans
When you click on the Place an Interlibrary Loan
Request hyperlink from the article's holdings screen you will be taken to the Interlibrary
Loan Request Borrower Information screen, where you will need to fill in
your student library card number (same as your student ID number) and the
PIN that the Library gave to you when you activated your library privileges:
Once you click on the Continue button, you will have an
opportunity to complete the Borrower Information form:
_________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
A lot of people have trouble filling in the "Item no longer
required after" date. They often put the date their essay is due in this
box. However, if the article arrived on your essay's due date, it would not be
much use to you, would it? Put a date that is at least a week earlier than your
essay's due date so you have time to use it.
Once you fill out this
online ILL request form and click on the Send Request button, the following
screen will be displayed:
If you are sure the article will still be useful to you in
two weeks, click on the Accept hyperlink.
When the article arrives, it will be kept for you at the Service Desk at the
campus you specified in your interlibrary loan request. A message will be
sent to your library record when this article arrives for you. Remember the
lead time needed for interlibrary loans, and try to do your library research
early enough that you will be able to take advantage of ILL services when
needed. (To learn
more about interlibrary loan services, click here,
or watch the animated tutorial
How to Request a Journal Article on Interlibrary Loan.)
There are limits to the number of interlibrary loan requests you may make in an
academic year. First- and second-year students are permitted 20 ILL
requests per year; third- and fourth-year students are permitted 40 such
requests. Faculty, staff and graduate students are permitted 50 ILL requests from July 1-June
30.
Return to
top.
N. Google Search
Before we leave the ILL function, we need to
take a moment to describe the Google and Google Scholar options
available from the holdings screens. When you click on the Google
hyperlink, the database will search for the title of the article you need on
the Google search engine to see if, by chance, the article has been
posted to the Internet. In the case of the needed article here, Google
retrieved only a reference to the needed article, and not the article
itself.
We wish to thank Google®
for their permission to use this screen capture of their search engine.
O. Google Scholar
The Google Scholar link from the holdings page takes you into a
version of the Google search engine that tries to gather the more scholarly web
resources. Sometimes you may actually get access to the article you need through
Google Scholar. However, in this case, we retrieve only a website where
our article is cited.
We wish to thank Google®
for their permission to use this screen capture of their search engine.
As with all Internet resources, you must evaluate websites
carefully to ensure that the information contained in them is accurate and
authoritative. See the research tutorial How
to Evaluate Your Sources for additional information.
P. RefWorks
This feature from the holdings screen will help you manage
your references and build the bibliography for your essay. You will
have to register for the service first, which is free. This feature is
especially useful if you have a great number of references to handle in your
paper and need help putting them in the correct style. For more
information on
RefWorks, click
here.
Q. Add to Folder
While scrolling through your result list, you may want to mark the
citations of interest by clicking on the little Add folder to the right of each
citation.
Records added to your folder can be accessed later for further consideration or for batch
emailing or printing by clicking on the hyperlinked words "Folder has Items."
R. Try Other Keyword Searches
The keyword search "pets and mental health" was just one example of several searches you could attempt in
this article index. You had other keywords such as companion
animals, animals, dogs, cats, birds, mental illness. You could try another
keyword search, such as "pets and mental illness," "animals and
mental illness," or "dogs and mental health" to see if additional
citations result. Return to
top.
S. Searching By Subject
Remember the subject "Human-animal relationships" we got from Record
10 and from the yellow frame in our first search?
After you have scanned the 21 citations in the first search, it would be a good
idea to do any subject searches you have gleaned along the way.
Click on the "Advanced Search" tab from the top banner, and type in
this subject heading in the
search line. By clicking on the little triangle beside the Default Fields button,
you will pull down a menu.
Select "SU Subject Terms" and then click on the Search key. The database responds that there are
912 articles that have this
subject as a main focus of their content. This is a great improvement on
the 21 citations we originally found with our keyword search! Well,
maybe it is too much of a good thing. You might want to add another
concept, like mental health, to narrow the search down a little!
Return to
top.
T. Limiting to Full Text Only - and a Warning!
Well, with over 900 articles on Human-Animal
Relationships, it is likely that you will have enough material (more than
enough) to handle your essay topic adequately. If you want, you may
limit your results to only full text articles by clicking on the Refine
Search tab, and then turning the Full Text option on.
When you activate this search, your result set has only 539
records in it, all with the full text available online in either PDF or HTML
formats.
Here's the warning: While this might be a handy
and tempting limiter, remember that you will miss all the full text
materials available from another full text database via the "Where Can I Get
this Item?"
buttons. In addition, you will miss all the materials available from Malaspina's own periodical collection. Return to
top.
U. Accessing
Malaspina's Periodicals
Let's look at a citation from a journal for which Malaspina
has a subscription. The citation chosen has been taken from the
human-animal relationships subject search:
When you click on the hyperlinked Where Can I Get This Item?, the following holding
screen is displayed:
This issue is held in the periodicals collection at the
Nanaimo Campus Library at call number QL 671 A75. If you are a Nanaimo Campus
student, you will be able to obtain the issue you need yourself, and read it
in the Library or photocopy it. Please note that periodicals may not
leave the library.
If you are not a Nanaimo Campus student,
your access to this article will be via the intercampus loan services.
You would fill in the normal Request an Interlibrary Loan form but make sure you
note on the request that you want the item sent to your regional campus library
for pick up there. Once this
online form has been sent, Malaspina Library staff will photocopy the pages you need
and place the article for pick up at the campus you specified in your
request. There are no limits to the number of intercampus loans you
can request.
Return to
top.
V. HELP
Like all good electronic article indexes, Academic Search Elite provides an online Help
button, which can be used at any time. Return
to top.
W. NOT ALL JOURNALS ARE INDEXED
Not all journals are indexed, and sometimes an article you are looking for has been so
recently published that the indexing companies have not had a chance to enter
the data into their indexes. For these times, you will need to browse through
recent issues of a journal looking for the article you need.
Return to
top.
X. HOW MUCH RESEARCH IS ENOUGH?
Be sure to discuss with your instructor how many references he or she is
expecting for the essay. In the absence of a specific number of references
from your instructor, you can use this rule of thumb: use one good
reference for each double-spaced typed page of essay. This is only a
guideline. You also need to be sure that you are informed enough on your
topic that you can discuss all the major aspects of your topic, both pro and
con.
Malaspina University-College offers a Writing Centre (located on the 4th floor
of the Nanaimo Campus Library) to assist you in writing
essays and other papers during your studies. Contact the Centre at
740-6191 for additional information on this service.
Return to top.
Y. EVALUATING YOUR REFERENCES
Your ability to evaluate information presented to you is the skill you are
developing as you pursue your education regardless of the discipline you have
chosen. Your instructors will be evaluating you both on the resources you select to support
your essay as well as on how well you express your opinions based upon those
resources.
There are several questions you should keep in mind when selecting references
for your essay:
How much information do I need? (The breadth of your topic, the length of
the essay, and your instructor's requirements will help you answer this
question.)
What kind of information do I need? (Factual, literary criticism, recently
published, etc.)
How quickly do I need the information? (Today or in six weeks - the answer
will dictate what is available to you and whether or not you can make use of
interlibrary loan services.)
How current must the information be? (If it is an historical or literary
topic, currency of your references may not be critical. If your topic is
scientific or medical in nature, you may need up-to-the-minute research.)
How authoritative is the information in a reference? Is the author
considered an expert on this topic? Is the article published in a
scholarly or peer-reviewed journal? Has the author cited additional
references in support of his or her thesis?
Who is the intended audience for this information? Was the information
aimed at an educated, thinking reader or has it been published to attempt to
sway a non-critical audience?
Is the bias of the author stated or implied?
Throughout your academic career, and your life, you will gain experience in
selecting scholarly, authoritative and relatively unbiased material upon which
to base your own informed opinions. Here are some suggestions to help you
do this:
Use the best article indexes for your topic - often more than one is
needed. The librarian will be happy to help you select these.
Scan and use the references cited in bibliographies contained in relevant books
or other journal articles on your topic. The authors of these will most
surely have selected the better references, some of which will be worth
pursuing.
Choose references from scholarly or peer-reviewed journals. A
peer-reviewed journal requires that an article submitted for publication in it
be reviewed or edited by three experts in the relevant field of research.
This process goes a long way to ensuring that original and properly researched
results get published and provides some "authority" to the findings
reported.
How will you know if a journal is peer-reviewed? Many journal indexes
permit you to narrow your search to articles published in peer-reviewed
journals. The reference librarians have directories that list the
journals which are peer-reviewed.
For additional information on how to evaluate journal articles and other references,
see How to Evaluate Your Sources. Return to top.
Z. YOU ARE NOT ALONE -
LIBRARIANS CAN HELP YOU
At first glance, all this might appear daunting and confusing. Please
remember that you are not alone. The reference librarian will help you at
every step and will continue to help you all through your studies at
Malaspina.
The librarians are available in person at the Library or by
phone at (250) 740-6151, Monday-Thursday 9:00am-6:00pm, and Friday
9:00am-5:00pm throughout the semester, via
online from the Ask a Librarian! button available from most MARLIN screens,
by email directly at reference@mala.bc.ca,
and by AskAway instant chat at
http://www.askaway.org. Save yourself time by asking for help early in your research.
Return to
top.
AA. ACCESSING ARTICLE INDEXES
FROM YOUR HOME OR OFFICE COMPUTER
You may do your research from your home or office computer. You will need
your library ID number and the PIN assigned to this ID, and your library record
will need to be in good standing. From the Library's homepage
at http://www.mala.ca/library.asp,
click on Search for Resources, then Full Service MARLIN (login).
Log in to Marlin using your library card number and the PIN assigned to you by
the Library's Service Desk, and click on the Login to Full Service MARLIN button. Should you have difficulties accessing the indexes
from home, contact the reference librarian for assistance at 740-6151, by email
at reference@mala.bc.ca or by AskAway
instant chat service at http://www.askaway.org.
Return to
top.
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