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Select the database you wish to search - Databases may include the full text and/or graphics of articles or they may only include the citation for each article (author, title, journal title, date, issue, and page numbers).
A general article database might cover thousands of journals or magazines published in many subject areas. A specialized, subject specific article database might cover a few hundred journals published in one particular subject area or discipline.
Some databases include more than just journal articles. Subject specific databases often include books, parts of books, dissertations, and papers presented at conferences. Databases available at TWU are listed on the databases page at http://www.twu.edu/library/articles/title_az.htm
So What Should You Use?
What database you need to use depends on what kind of research you want to do.
- You just need a few recent articles on a topic.
Try a general database that has some full text articles such as Academic Search Premier, Lexis-Nexis, or MasterFILE Premier. Articles from these databases may be scholarly, trade, (news or general interest), or from popular magazines.
- You don't need that many articles, but you want to make sure you are getting articles from professional or scholarly sources.
Scholarly journals are usually peer reviewed and have footnotes and/or bibliographies. Popular journals (sometimes referred to as magazines) have splashy advertisements and can be found on newsstands and at your local grocery store.
Try one of the subject specific databases. Most of the subject specific databases only include scholarly or peer reviewed sources. ERIC indexes educational journals, Medline indexes medical journals, LibraryLit indexes journals about library and information science, etc...
- You want to do a comprehensive search for articles on your topic.
You will usually need to search one or more subject specific databases. If you need articles prior to 1990, you will also want to search print indexes.
Subject Guides are available to help you determine which databases index journals on specific topics.
Reference Librarians are also available to help you with your selection.
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