Research Help Guides
How can I find journal articles?
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
- 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.
Getting articles
- 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.
- Search for the journal title in our Journal Finder (available from the library's home page) to see if UMBC has print or electronic access to the journal.
Sample search for the journal Biophysical Chemistry in Serials Search:
BIOPHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Serials Stacks 1(1973) - present. Incomplete holdings
(0301-4622)Internet Current 6 - 9 months
(0301-4622)Connect - Serials Stacks refers to the print journals shelved alphabetically by title on the 2nd floor.
- Incomplete holdings indicates that a certain issue(s) may be missing. To see exactly which volumes and issues are available, do a journal title search in the Library Catalog, and click on UMBC.
- Internet refers to an online subscription of the journal. Click the "Connect" link to go to the online version.
- 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...
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