CRIM 110 - Walters
Locating academic, or scholarly, resources with a focus on academic journals.
Popular or Scholarly?
Is the article authoritative and scholary? Is it from a peer-reviewed source? For college-level research, you most often need scholarly resources. Scholarly journals, unlike magazines, usually report research undertaken by scholars and researches in a particular field of study. Articles in scholarly journals tend to be long, include a description of the research methodology, and include citations, or references and footnotes.
Sometimes you may need to find peer-reviewed, or refereed articles. These are articles that have been reviewed by a panel of experts in the particular field before the article is even accepted for publication.
Many of the article databases allow you to easily limit your search to peer-reviewed articles while others do not. To verify the status of your journal as peer-reviewed, you can use Ulrich's Periodical Directory.
For more information on this topic:
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FLITE's short video tutorial Types of Periodicals: Popular, Trade, and Scholary
FLITE's Guide to Popular vs. Scholarly Periodicals
UC Berkeley's guide to Critical Evaluation of Resources
Database Searching: Finding Articles
To find journal articles on a particular topic, use one or more of the databases available on the FLITE Web site. These are some to get you started.
Academic OneFile
Academic OneFile is an important database for peer-reviewed, full-text journal articles from leading journals and reference sources. Thorough and extensive, topics include technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature, and other subjects from over 14,000 journals, 9,000 of which are peer-reviewed. Also includes the full-text of the New York Times from 1985 to the present and podcasts from NPR, CNN, and the CBC.
Criminal Justice Periodicals Index
This database provides selective full-text coverage to journals in the fields of law enforcement, corrections administration, social work, drug rehabilitation, criminal and family law, industrial security, and other criminal justice fields. Citations extend back to 1981.
Suggestions to retrieve better/more results:
- Search topic as both a keyword and subject
- Combine terms with AND or OR
- Set date ranges limit to a specific time
- Use quotes for phrases
- Subject searching: Search for the subject of your topic.
Example:
Topic: German Immigration
Subject: German Americans - Keyword searching: Search for keywords on your topic.
Example:
Topic: The invention of the car
Keyword(s): automobile history
Other databases are sorted by subject from the Database Access page.
Please read Off Campus Database Access for information on searching from home.
Getting the Article
If HTML or PDF full text options are available, click the link to go directly to the full text.
If full text is not an option:
Click the "Find It", link or button;
Select red GO button.
Citing Sources
Citation Style Guide:APA (PDF)
An online version of FLITE's APA Quick Reference handout, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Citations - a FLITE guide
A guide to understanding citations, and a link to different online citation management tools that can help you input your sources and create your bibliographies.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism tutorials and self-help guides, plus a link to step-by-step citation assistance.
Getting Help
Contact: Stacy Anderson / Email / Phone: 231-591-3635 / Office: FLITE 140C
Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.
If you would like to make an appointment for a one-on-one research consultation with a librarian, use this online form.
Last update: September 23, 2010