ANTH 204: Jenkins, K. (Fall 2022): Finding scholarly articles in TCC Library databases
Introduction
One of the requirements of your Site Report research project is to include at least 10 sources, 6 of which must be from either scholarly, peer-reviewed journals or from books. This page will show you how to find scholarly articles in the TCC Library databases.
Databases containing scholarly, peer-reviewed journals
The Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, and PsycARTICLES databases (all published by EbscoHost) include many original research articles. (The direct links to these databases are at the bottom of this box.)
Search tips:
Type your topic into the first one or two search boxes and then use another box to type: "methods OR results OR study" as shown here in the second box. Use the drop down menu to choose the ABSTRACT search field for all boxes. Click search.
Limit to academic journals:
Limit the results list by checking the "Academic Journals" limiter on the left side of the results page
You will still need to examine the individual articles looking for the characteristics listed under the "Definition and description" tab on this guide to be sure of finding the right kind of article.
The ProQuest databases also include scientific research articles. There is a larger number and mix of article types in ProQuest, so you may need to look through a larger number of articles to find what you need.
Search tips:
Click on ADVANCED SEARCH, then enter your search terms in one or two search boxes and results OR methods in the second or third box. As in EbscoHost, change the search field to "Abstract".
Limit your results to scholarly journals:
Quite a bit further down the screen, limit the search as shown below:
As you look through your results, you will need to examine the characteristics of the individual articles to make certain they are what you need.
Explore the ProQuest database:
- ProQuest Periodical Databases This link opens in a new window
Multiple periodical databases providing coverage of a wide range of topics, with a mix of popular and scholarly sources. Particularly good for current events.
ScienceDirect is a database that only includes scholarly, scientific articles!
Advanced Search tips:
If you go to the "Advanced Search" option, you can see there is an option below the search boxes to narrow down to "research articles"
Explore ScienceDirect:
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
A full-text database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and 11,000 books, including reference works. (Tip: After searching for your topic, choose the "Refine by subscribed journals" feature on the results page to view the items you can access free of charge because you are a TCC student.)
Evolutionary Anthropology journal
Search this journal to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on your topic.
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.tacomacc.idm.oclc.org/journal/15206505
Article abstracts on publisher's websites
Try finding abstracts related to your topic from these publisher websites:
Finding scholarly articles in Google Scholar
Generally, the web is not the easiest or best place to find scholarly articles; I'd go to the databases or books first. But there are some scholarly articles on the web. One way to separate the scholarly from the non-scholarly is to use the Google Scholar search engine (scholar.google.com). Google Scholar searches for scholarly citations that are free on the web.
The only downside is that most of the time, Google Scholar finds only citations. That's because the articles themselves are usually not free, especially if they are published in journals! Every once in a while, though, you will get lucky and find free full text articles. If you are not lucky, ask your librarians, we might be able to find the article another way (with no charges involved).
Results in Google Scholar are ordered by relevance, and relevance is determined by the number of times the article has been cited by others.
- Underneath the link to an article, there is a "Cited by" link to all the other articles that have cited it.
- A link to the right of the article title indicates full text
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