Check your library’s website to see what databases it subscribes to and how you can access them. The good news? Many can be accessed through a school or university library. Many of these databases charge fees for use. Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) - focus on education.MEDLINE, PubMed Central - focus on biomedical and life sciences.Examples of popular general academic databases include:Įxamples of popular academic databases focused on specific subjects: You need to search for information using an academic database which will lead you to scholarly articles.ĭatabases are organized computer-based collections of data that allow researchers to find a large number of articles quickly and easily. These will lead you to popular sources that may not work for a school paper. When you are doing scholarly research, you can’t use popular search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. You will need to include the volume and the issue numbers, and the page numbers in your citations so make sure to write those down when you take notes from a journal. It pays to check the table of contents for the issue when you find an article that fits your needs. This means that there may be other articles in a particular issue that you can use for your research. Tip: Journals frequently publish issues around a certain theme, so all of the articles in that issue will relate to a certain topic. Issue(s): The issues are all the specific editions of the journal published in that year.Volume: The volume is all of the editions of the journal published in a calendar year.The process of peer review gives credibility to the journal because it means that every article published has been approved by other experts in the field.Īcademic journals are organized in volumes and issues. The peer reviewers scrutinize every article closely to validate its findings and ensure that the research was done properly. Journals that are peer-reviewed have a board of experts in the field that review articles submitted to the journal. Journals are good sources for academic research not only because they are written by experts, but because most (but not all) are also reviewed by other experts before the article is published. The importance of peer-reviewed academic journals Tip: Reading the abstract and the conclusion first may help you to understand the article as you read. Journals are where the most recent research is published and provide in-depth information on a topic. But that doesn’t mean you should not use journals in your research. The writers often use jargon and other complex language that students may not understand. Journals are different from other periodicals such as newspapers or magazines, which cover a broad range of topics and are written in easy to read prose.īecause journals are written by experts for other experts, they can be difficult to read.