Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery

Use the keywords from your topic sentence (see: How can I find information on my topic) to search for journal articles in databases – guides to the contents of journals, magazines, and newspapers.

• Start with a general or multidisciplinary database to get an overview of your topic
  Academic Search Premier
  Lexis Nexis Academic
• Use a subject database to find more in-depth information. See our subject guides for a list of department-specific databases.
• Some databases have full text articles, some have only citations (brief description of the article), some have a mix of full text and citations.

Note: You will need to use Research Port when searching for articles from off-campus. See Connecting from Off-Campus for more details.

Getting articles

1. Make sure you have a complete citation when you go to retrieve your articles. A complete citation includes journal title, article title, author, volume/issue, date, and page numbers.

   Example:

   Magistrale, Tony. "Wild Child: Jim Morrison's Poetic Journeys." Journal of Popular Culture 26.3 (Winter 1992): 133-44.

2. Search for the journal title in our A-to-Z Journal List (available from the library's home page) to see if UMBC has print or electronic access to the journal.
3. To get electronic journal articles from off-campus, or if you don't find your journal title in the Journal Finder, use Research Port to find e-Journals. See Connecting from Off-Campus for more details.

Now that you have some journal articles, you are ready to search for books...