3. Finding journal articles
Contents
Finding journal articles
These pages cover:
- The importance of journal indexes as research tools
- The different types of journal indexes
- Where to find journal indexes
- How to find and retrieve journal articles, citations, and abstracts.
Journal indexes as research tools
A journal is a periodical publication i.e. something which is published at regularly recurring intervals. Other types of periodicals include newspapers, magazines, serials, and annual reviews. The catalogue will tell you whether or not a particular journal is held at UNE, but it will not tell you the articles contained in a journal. For that, you need to use a journal index.
It is difficult to exaggerate the value of journal indexes as research tools. They allow you to review an entire body of knowledge, finding dozens of useful references in a few seconds.
Whatever their format, journal indexes:
- Provide you with access to a wide range of journals
- Allow you to search for journal articles on your topic (often by author, by specific journal or using a range of other possibilities)
- Provide bibliographic information (Howden S.M., Reyenga P. J. 1999, 'Methane emissions from Australian livestock: implications of the Kyoto Protocol', Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, vol. 50, no.8, pp. 1285-91)
- Cover a range of dates.
As mentioned earlier, journal indexes often contain abstracts (which are short summaries of the contents of each article) and, increasingly, the full-text of articles in electronic form. Many also include books, chapters from edited works, conference proceedings and many other types of publications.
Different types of indexes
Journal indexes come in a range of forms. Some are multidisciplinary, while others are subject based, such as indexes for psychology, sociology, business, nursing or the environment. The University Library subscribes to hundreds of different indexes, most of which are available over the Internet.
Some options are:
- Summon, this allows you to search for articles and e-books across multiple databases.
- A-Z list of databases, if you know which index you want, select it from this list.
- Library Subject Guides, for a discipline-specific list of databases.
You may also:
- Ask a Librarian or ring the Service Desk at Dixson Library on 02 6773 2458. Distance Student Enquiries are toll-free on 1800 059 735.
- Discuss your reference needs with your unit coordinator.
How to find and retrieve journal articles
Full-text indexes electronically deliver the contents of the articles themselves to your desktop, allowing you to view or print the articles. However, many journal indexes just provide you with a citation or citation and abstract.
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Using the Find It button When using a journal database you may come across the Find It button. This button allows you to find the full text of an article. Click on the Play button below for a quick demo on using Find It. 1.32min, 2.02MB  |
Alternatively, you can look for the title of that journal in the University Library catalogue. If the volume you want is held in paper format, you can either visit the library in person or, if you are an distance student, have a copy of the article sent to you.
If the journal isn't held by the library and you are a postgraduate student, you can still order a copy of the article through the Library's interlibrary loan service.
Journal indexes with and without full-text content are used in different ways. For this reason, we will use two separate indexes as examples. The first one is APA-FT (Australian Public Affairs-Full Text), which is part of Informit. The second is the Gale Databases, which contain lots of full-text.
For the purpose of the exercise, we'll undertake a search for information on the greenhouse effect.
Summary
This page examined:
- the value of journal indexes as a research tool
- the different sorts of indexes that exist
- where to find journal indexes
- how to find and retrieve journal articles
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Self-test
Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |
Searching Australian Public Affairs FT for articles
Before you begin
It is always worthwhile to review your choice of keywords before using a journal index. Ask yourself:
- What are the possible keywords that relate to my search?
- Are there any relevant unique terms or names?
- What equivalent or interchangeable terms can I use?
In this case, the keywords greenhouse effect, climate change, and global warming might all be useful keywords. Can you think of any others?
Why use APA-FT?
There are a number of good reasons for using APA-FT in our search for information on the greenhouse effect:
- APA-FT is multidisciplinary
- It has good Australian content
- APA-FT indexes over 2000 journals, plus feature articles in newspapers, conference papers and chapters in books
- It contains full text articles published in over 220 journals from 1995.
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Finding journal articles using Australian Public Affairs - Full Text Use APA-FT in Informit to locate full text journal articles. Click on the Play button below to find out how. 2.39min, 5.32MB |
Beginning a search
To begin your search of the APA-FT index:
- Go to Informit.
- Supply your UNE username and password when prompted.
- Select APA-FT from the list of databases.
- Click continue.
- Click inside the first Search box and type greenhouse effect.
- Click on the Search button.
- APA-FT then displays the matches for your search.
Combining keywords
The above search results in more than 2000 matches, which is probably far too many.
To reduce the number of matches, you need to narrow your search. One way to do this is to add other keywords to your search.
- In the search box to the right of the displayed matches, type kyoto protocol in the second search box before clicking on Search.
Refining your search
APA-FT on Informit allows you to refine your search in other ways, without the necessity of combining searches. Methods you can use include:
- Wildcards: wom?n will match woman or women
- Truncation: austral* will find australia, australian australia's or australasian
- Phrase searches: if two words are combined without an operator, APA-FT will interpret the words as a single phrase, eg juvenile justice, kyoto protocol
- Boolean operators: and, or and not can be used to determine the relationship between one or more keywords: dog or cat, cats and dogs, dogs not cats. Note that Boolean operators can be in either upper or lower case (gun NOT law, gun not law)
- Below the search box you can limit your search to Full content records only and/or by Publication year. Full content records only means full text!
Retrieval options
You can make a list of the references most relevant to your search by clicking in the box at the top left of each record you want to keep. To display these "marked" records, click on the View Selected link on the upper left of the screen. You can then choose to print, save or email these records.
To save records to your hard drive or onto a floppy disk or USB key:
- Click on the Save button at the right in the middle of the APA-FT Informit window (NOT from the browser's File menu)
- APA-FT will then offer you a choice of format for saving the records. Make your choices
- Click on Save Records, then also on Save. Find the drive or folder where you want to save your results, click on Save giving the file a name you can find again. Note: If you save your file as plain text you can open this file with any word processing software, such as Microsoft Word or Word Pad.
To print records:
- Click on Print in the middle right of the APA-FT Informit window (NOT your browser's Print button)
- APA-FT will then offer you selections including choice of format for printing your records. Make your selections
- Click on Print Records
- Click OK or Print in the browser print box that appears.
Note that this process prints the records, not the full text articles. You will need to print each full text article individually, using the print icon provided by Adobe reader, either after saving it to your desktop, or when it is displayed on the screen.
You can also send your search results to yourself as an email, or email it to anyone else with an email account:
- Click on Email inside the APA-FT window.
- Choose the format and other options you want for your records. Type your full email address and, if you wish, give your email a name in the subject line.
- Click on Email Records.
Finding the articles you need
Some articles in APA-FT have Full Text links below the listed reference. This means you can read, print, save or email the complete article. Click on the link, and the text of the article will appear. Many other useful articles will not be available as full text in APA-FT, particularly if they were published before 1995.
Note that APA-FT tells you what has been written, not if it is held in the University Library. If APA-FT does not offer a full text link, click on 
to see if the article is available in the University Library or through another electronic subscription.
You can also search the Library catalogue. Remember that you must search for the journal title, not the title or author of the individual article.
Logging Out
When you have finished using APA-FT or any other index in Informit, click on Logout before quitting your browser.
Summary
The page has discussed the following topics about the APA-FT index:
- Beginning a search
- Keyword searches
- Combining search results
- Modifying searches
- Marking records
- Printing, saving and emailing records.
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Self-test
Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |
Using CaseBase to find journal articles
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Finding articles with CaseBase Click on the Play button below to find out how you can find articles on legal topics using CaseBase in LexisNexis. This example shows how to find full-text articles on medical negligence. 1.51min, 1.96MB |
How to search Gale Databases
Using Gale PowerSearch you can search up to 19 databases at once or you may select the database you want to search.
Try a quick cross-search of Gale Databases
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Enter a word directly in this Search box.
Now try an Advanced Search
- Go to Gale Databases
- Enter your search terms in the Search boxes.
- Click on the check box to limit your search to academic (peer-reviewed) articles.
- Click on the Search button.
Search results
Your search results will be organised into different Content Tabs, simply click on that tab to view the resources available for that type.
Content Tabs
Magazine: general interest magazine articles from a variety of publications
Academic Journals: scholarly and academic level journal articles, many of which are peer-reviewed
Books: documents from e-Books found in your Gale Virtual Reference Library collection and/or any reference works in the databases you have selected to cross-search
News: newspaper, newswire, and newsletter articles
Multimedia: videos, podcasts, images and broadcast transcripts
More Results: from the More Results tab, you can go beyond reviewing results from the databases you have currently selected. You can search within other Gale resources also.
Article View
To view an article, click on the hyperlinked title of the document or on one of the following choices below the citation to view the article:
- Full-text
- Text with graphics
- PDF pages
- or Abstract.
Article tools
The article tools are available in the box to the upper right of the article. Some useful tools include
- Download: Allows you to save the article to a preferred location on your computer
- Citation Tools: Generate a citation in MLA or APA format, or export citations to referencing software, such as EndNote
- Bookmark: The bookmark link will generate a persistent URL that you can email or copy that will take you back to the article
- Translate: Choose a language from the pull down menu and click on the translate button to translate the article into one of eleven different languages
- Readspeaker: Click Listen, then press the Play button on the blue bar to have the article read aloud to you
Gale User Accounts
When you register for your free Gale user account, you will be able to
- save and organise your marked items
- request search alerts
- setup RSS feeds
All items you save can be accessed at any future time using your account's My Account page.
Saving searches to Your User Account
Save a search over multiple sessions by selecting the 'save this search' link on the search results page. Then name the search in the red box that appears. This will permanently save the search into your User Account Profile.
Search alerts and RSS feeds
Search alerts will notify you via email when new content is added to the database that matches your search criteria.
You may choose to have the system check for new content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and send you an email message when updates are found.
To create a Search Alert, simply click on the 
icon and fill in the appropriate email address and frequency fields. This is particularly helpful at the publications details page where you can sign up to have the new issue of a publication delivered to your email as soon as it enters the database.
You may also subscribe to an RSS feed and have content delivered directly to you. To create an RSS feed, click on the icon and copy the URL provided for your search and paste it into your reader.
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Self-test
Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |
