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Finding 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 and subject-specific databases.
  • Find subject-relevant journal titles on the Journals & Articles tab of your subject guide 
  • Search Primo for individual journal article titles and request electronic copies of journal articles the library doesn’t have online.

Related Guides: Find Specific Articles or Journals

Types of Journal Articles

This video covers peer review and how to find peer-reviewed articles.

Is this a peer-reviewed journal article? (2 min)

Types of Journal Articles

Note: not every item in a peer-reviewed journal is  peer-reviewed article.

  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. Methodology/Theoretical

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

  4. News/Opinions/Book Reviews/Letters/

    1. Look for: reference to another publication, person, or event
    2. Not scholarly, not peer-reviewed
    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

Finding Articles by Topic or Article Title

Primo searches many of the library’s resources at once, including most journal articles from various databases.

Best Bet: Articles Search

Instructions

    1. Enter your search terms or Article Title in the search box. Select the Articles search from the drop down menu. Primo articles search for Business ethics AND sustainability

2. From the search results, Select Articles under Resource type or Peer-reviewed Journals under availability for Peer reviewed articles. :

Peer reviewed journals and articles filters

Under the article information in the search results there are two possible access options: Full text available or View Issue Contents.

Availability option links in the search results in Primo

  1. Click PDF or Read Article in Blue if available OR 
  2. Click Full text available in green.

For instructions on access options see the tabs below.

If you are off-campus, you will be prompted to login with your CUAA Portal Login to access databases. 

Find Articles by Journal Title

1. Search for the Journal title in the EJournal Search

EJournals search interface in Primo

2. Click on the journal title from the search results. If the journal is not found, request the article via inter library Loan.

3. Check the View It section for the date ranges available. Click a database link to access the journal online. 

Database links in Primo with date ranges listed below.

Find articles on Subject Guides

Find Database suggestions for journal articles on your Resources by Subject Guide‘s Databases tab.

You can also find Databases by Subject on Journals and Magazines page of the library website.

Finding 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.

Here’s an example of a database from our list of 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

Watch the next video to see a demonstration of finding full-text inside databases.

Request Articles the Library Doesn't Own

If you have searched Primo, Google Scholar, and library databases and still can’t find the article, submit an Inter-library Loan Request via the form.

Be sure to include the article’s title, authors, year, journal, volume, and pages.  Copy and paste the full citation of the article into the box, if possible.

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