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Find Journal Articles

Summary

  • Journal articles are short summaries of scholarly topics or research, come in different types, and can be peer-reviewed.
  • Search for journal articles Primo Search and subject specific databases.
  • Find subject-relevant journal titles on the Journals & Articles tab of your subject guide or course/program guide
  • Search Primo for individual journal article titles and request electronic copies of journal articles CUW doesn’t have online.

Related Guides: Find Specific Articles

What are Journal articles?

Journal articles are one of the ways researchers share information with the rest of the world. This video covers what peer review is and how to find peer reviewed articles.

Scholarly journals & Peer Review (2 Min)

Types of Journal Articles

Is this a scholarly journal? (2 min)

Note: not every article in a peer-reviewed journal is a research article. In a database look for Document Type. Most assignments will require #1 and/or #2

  1. Original Research

    1. Look for: words like “study”, “design” “experiment” or “analysis” in the abstract
    2. Common sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion

  2. Literature Review

    1. Look for: summary of multiple articles on a topic
    2. Long page lengths
    3. Sections organized by themes

  3. Methodology/Theoretical

    1. Looks for: terms like “concepts”, “framework”, “model”, “theoretical foundation”, and “perspectives” in the abstract or title
    2. Difficult to read and understand

  4. News/Opinions/Book Reviews/Letters/

    1. Look for: reference to another publication, person, or event
    2. Not scholarly
    3. very short page length

  5. Case studies

    1. Look for: a description of a unique situation or events
    2. More common in medicine, business, social sciences
    3. May be too unique to be applicable to a larger population.

Find articles by topic

Primo searches journal articles from most databases. This video demonstrates the process.

Download PDf link in search results

USE DOWNLOAD PDF LINK IF AVAILABLE

Click on a database with the year the journal article was published (Listed under the details section). Don’t see the year you need? You may have to request the article (see ILL below)

View Online Database Links

Click the PDF image to access the Full-text

PDF full-text in Browzine

Find articles on subject guides

Most databases have journal articles. Find database suggestions on your Subject Guides‘ Databases tab.

Many subject guides also have Journals & Articles tab as well.

Find journal articles in databases

Almost all databases have some journal articles. Databases are organized by subject and include descriptions of the types of items they have. Students must choose the right database based on the description. Click the name to open the database and search.

Suggested Help Guide: Using Databases

Here’s an example of a database from our list Databases A-Z. The important words are highlighted and bold:

Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) Comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 7,000 full-text periodicals, including nearly 6,000 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 11,000 journals and a total of more than 11,600 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.

This database is:

  • Subject: multi-disciplinary
  • Full-text and Index only items (not everything is full-text)
  • Scholarly and peer-reviewed items
  • Types of documents included: articles, journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings

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