How To Find Academic Journals

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When you have a research project – whether for work, schoolhouse, or another purpose – you want the nearly reliable and upwards-to-date information. Scholarly articles are some of the best resources for a research project. With a little chip of work, you lot can find plenty of scholarly articles online for free, besides equally other reliable resources, such as authorities publications. Especially if yous observe references online, make sure you lot examine the material critically to evaluate its quality.^[one]

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Try Google Scholar. You can access Google Scholar through http://scholar.google.com. In countries other than the United States, search for "Google Scholar" to get your local folio. Through this search page, you can look through numerous journals, theses, abstracts, and articles covering a wide range of disciplines. ^[2]
- Utilize advanced search options to get the all-time results. You probable won't accept the same success if yous use key words or plain language searches like you lot would on any other internet search engine.
- Your results will be a listing of citations in society of relevance. Be sure to bank check the dates, since3 they won't be ordered chronologically. Click a result to go publication information. If information technology's available, yous can view the full text gratuitous of accuse.
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Visit the DOAJ. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides a number of scholarly periodical articles that you can access complimentary of charge. The DOAJ includes scientific and academic journals covering a variety of fields, and written in many languages.^[3]
- All of the articles on the DOAJ are completely open admission, meaning you tin read or print the full text of the articles free of charge.
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Use subject field-specific search engines. There are numerous scholarly search engines that are focused on a particular subject, such as science or history. The results you notice may let y'all to read the full text of manufactures for free, or read an abstract and pay to download the full text.^[4]
- For case, if you're doing a science research project, you might look for articles on SciSeek or SciCentral.
- You can search for these websites online, or ask a college professor or enquiry librarian for some recommendations.
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Check out the websites of individual academics. If you know the name of a prominent professor in the subject area you're researching, you may exist able to observe copies of their piece of work on their own website or university contour.^[5]
- Most professors have a list of all of their publications. Depending on the policy of the publisher, they also may have PDF or online copies of the article bachelor on their ain website for y'all to read or download.
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Search government pages. Pages operated by national governments, also as legislative or parliamentary websites, are not bad sources of main documents, such as laws and policy papers.^[vi]
- Many governmental departments too publish scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. For example, the National Institutes of Wellness in the United States hosts PubMed, which provides abstracts and full text of scholarly articles, many of them gratis of charge.
- Governmental commissions and committees also may have reliable documents used in drafting and amending legislation, such every bit position papers and statistical analysis. In addition to using these equally sources themselves, you can dig through the citations in those documents to find scholarly manufactures that may be relevant to your project.
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Observe articles from international or not-governmental organizations. Many international or non-governmental organizations, such as the United Nations, produce scholarly research too. These reports oftentimes are available for free, or at a relatively express toll.^[vii]
- Before you use a paper written for a non-governmental or nonprofit organization, make sure you sympathize the mission, purpose, and agenda of the organisation itself. While many of these papers will be well-referenced and reliable, some may be slanted towards a particular viewpoint or position.
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Go to a university library website. Many universities take a more than open arroyo to providing scholarly articles to the full general public. You may be able to admission scholarly articles through the library's website even if you aren't a current educatee at that school.^[8]
- Check colleges and universities almost you as well. That way it won't be inconvenient if y'all end upwardly having to go to the library to await at articles you've found online.
- Even universities that don't have open admission to their databases may still have open admission to the full general public if you lot use a computer in the library itself.
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Admission electronic databases. Different libraries volition have different databases of scholarly journals and other scholarly publications. Typically these databases cover detail fields or disciplines.^[9]
- Look for a tab that says "research," "online resources," or something similar. Even if the library allows the general public to admission the databases, you may take to create a user account.
Proficient TIP

Kim Gillingham is a retired library and information specialist with over thirty years of experience. She has a Master'due south in Library Science from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, and she managed the audiovisual section of the district library center in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, for 12 years. She continues to do volunteer work for various libraries and lending library projects in her local customs.

Kim Gillingham, MA
Master'southward Degree, Library Science, Kutztown University

Did Y'all Know? Librarians, whether at a public library or a enquiry institution, are trained in information sciences, which means they're experts at tracking downwardly information and finding sources. Don't hesitate to ask a librarian for aid!
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Enter your search terms. When searching library databases, you'll typically get better results using avant-garde search options than a manifestly language search like you would use for a general internet search engine.^[10]
- If you've never used this particular database, familiarize yourself with the search terms. While they'll generally exist the aforementioned, at that place may exist some differences from ane library organisation to another.
- Typically you'll besides have the pick of limiting your results. For case, you lot may be able to bank check a box if you want your search to return only peer-reviewed articles.
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Call up your results. When you submit your search, you'll get back a list of related scholarly articles. Typically the search results will give you the name and writer of the article forth with publication information.^[eleven]
- In an open up-admission library, you can click on the title of an article to read the full text of the article. In other libraries, clicking on the championship may pb you just to an abstract. If you call up the article would be helpful for your project based on the abstract, y'all typically can access the total text by going to the library.
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Get information about the publication. Typically, the publisher of a scholarly journal or publication is a university or academic society. If the proper noun isn't well known to yous, additional research may be necessary.^[12]
- Sometimes a periodical can look and feel scholarly and impressive, but actually be a hastily put together affair with no real standing.
- Do an online search for the name of the publication or the name of the publisher. Look for more information about their reputation in the field.
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Research the background of the writer. Unless the author is someone known to y'all to be a leader in the field, you need to find out how much say-so they have. Articles written by people with all-encompassing experience in the field are considered more reliable than those written past students.^[13]
- You also want to review the author's background for possible bias. If the writer is someone who openly advocates for a detail policy or position, their scholarly work may non be objective.
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Expect for citations of the article. Articles that are mentioned frequently in later scholarship accept made a big impact on their field. Review these later mentions carefully to decide whether the article was received favorably.^[14]
- For case, if you have an article that has been cited l times in the past yr, that article has made a big impact. Nevertheless, further review indicates that the article was criticized or dismissed in nearly all of those citations. It would likely exist a fault to rely on that article given all that criticism.
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Talk to research library staff. After all of your research into the groundwork of an commodity and its author, y'all may yet be unsure about the quality of the article. A research librarian will be able to discuss with you how reliable the source is.^[xv]
- Research librarians as well may be able to point you to other resources that you lot didn't know about or hadn't considered.
- Some universities allow you to ask the inquiry librarians questions online, without always going to the library. Don't leave online questions to the final minute, since you may have to wait for a response.
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