Reading 002 Project: Choosing Articles

A Database is a collection of articles, book chapters and other information from reliable sources. The library subscribes to many good databases you can search to locate articles for your library project.

Each database listed below will provide full-text articles from magazines and  scholarly journals. If an article is not available in full-text, try the full-text options link to locate it in another database. Instructions are in the box on the right.

Select one of the databases listed below locate a magazine and a journal article.

All of the resources in these databases come from reliable publications.  Although they are delivered through the Internet, they are not considered "Internet Sources" by your professors. 

 All articles may be printed, emailed or saved on a flash drive.  Most of the databases also provide "My Folder" options that allow you to save your articles for future use.  Check it out!!

To help narrow your search do an Advanced Search. Click on Advanced Search. Enter your keywords using the AND connector. The database will look for articles that contain both of your key words.

Here is an example from Academic Search Complete:

Your results will include articles from magazines, newspapers and journals. To limit your results, use the limit box on the left of the screen. Check magazines, for instance and then click update.  The remaining results will be magazine articles.

Select an article that addresses your research question and includes five points about your topic.

Once you have done your search, select the best articles.
Is the article...

1. Too general? (It must cover the narrower topic!)
2. Too short? (It should be at least 2 pages or 500 words.)
3. Informative? (It must have 5 facts about your narrower topic.)
4. Recent? (It should be no older than 3-5 years.)
5. Well-documented? (Crime stories or opinions are not good.)