SHAWNEE STATE UNIVERSITY ::

Research Strategies

:: The Library

:: Search Strategy

:: Topic

:: The Web

:: Scholarly?

:: Reference

:: Catalogs

:: Articles

:: Databases I

:: Databases II

:: Databases III

:: Databases IV

:: Quick Search

:: Evaluation

:: Plagiarism

:: Citing

Articles
Articles in periodicals range from the incredibly bizarre stories in supermarket tabloids like Weekly World News to the gravely serious reports in publications such as Journal of Cancer Research.

Articles & Periodicals
This webpage is about articles published in periodicals. Periodicals are magazines, journals, newspapers, newsletters, and other literatures that are published regularly -- daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. -- under the same general title (Newsweek, Pediatrics, USA Today). Periodicals are also called serials.

Finding Articles
Although some professional/scholarly articles are published on the Web, many more are available via research databases. Clark Memorial Library's research databases provide online access to articles from more than 18,000 periodicals.

The two research databases linked from the CML homepage, Academic Search Complete and LexisNexis, provide online articles from both popular/general and professional/scholarly periodicals and are a great place to begin a search.

If you know that title of the periodical in which an article appears, you can use our E-Journal Finder to locate a database that provides online full text.

Current Periodicals
Articles that are not available online may be available in hard copy in the library. Clark Memorial Library subscribes to approximately 600 periodicals in hard copy. You can find recent issues of magazines and journals in Current Periodicals on the main floor and in the CMC on the lower level. If the article is not available online or in hard copy, you can request a copy of it using the interlibrary loan service.

Back Issues
Older issues of periodicals may be available in microfilm or microfiche format. A micro reader/printer is available on the main level near the micro cabinet. Older periodicals may also be bound and shelved in the Circulating Collection on the upper and lower levels of the library.

Interlibrary Loan
If an article is not available in hard copy in the Library or in electronic full text, request it via InterLibrary Loan.

Popular/General and Substantive/Trade Periodicals
Periodicals that are available at a newsstand (publications like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Men's Health, or Sports Illustrated) are categorized as popular, general audience, or consumer magazines.

Periodicals such as National Review, The New Republic, Newsweek, or Time that provide longer and more serious articles may be described as substantive. Although the articles in these publications may be quite lengthy and of considerable intellectual merit, they are not scholarly publications.

Trade periodicals serve an audience in a particular industry or profession by providing news and opinions of interest to that industry or profession. Examples of this type of periodical are Chemical & Engineering News, Education Week, The Financial Times, OT Practice, Plastics News, and RN.

Professional/Scholarly Periodicals
Professional/scholarly articles are published in professional/scholarly journals. The following are common types of scholarly articles:

Research articles
- Reports of original research/empirical studies
Review articles
- Critical analysis or evaluation of published materials that summarize and integrate the state of current knowledge and may suggest new directions for research
Theoretical articles
- Presentations of new theories or interpretations and/or disputations of older ideas
Book reviews

Format of the Professional/Scholarly Article
Professional/scholarly articles are generally easy to identify because they are written to conform to specific standards of presentation. Oftentimes, you can guess that an article is scholarly simply by its title: the title very clearly indicates in technical language what the article will be about. Additionally, institutional and contact information for the authors will often be given on the first page of the article.

Article Title and Authors

Professional/scholarly articles generally include an abstract or summary preceding the text of the article that indicates in a nutshell what the article is about. Reading the abstract will give you a good indication of the relevance of the article to your research -- so reading the abstract can save you lots of time!

Many articles, especially in the sciences, medical sciences, mathematics, and technology are written in a particular format referred to as IMRD, in which

I = Introduction (an overview of the topic and information about previous research)
M = Methods, Methodology, and/or Materials (a description of the investigation that the author undertook)
R = Results (what the author found out during the investigation, the data the author gathered)
D = Discussion (the implications of what the data reveal; the author's interpretation of the information gathered)

A fifth section of text, the Conclusion, is included is some articles.

Most scholarly articles end with a bibliography. The bibliography may be labeled "References," "Works Cited," "Footnotes," etc., but it will always be a list of the works the author cited in his/her article.

Learning to identify professional and scholarly journals, and to distinguish them from other periodicals that may cover a similar subject area, is an important accomplishment for college students. The table below compares and indicates key characteristics of several types of periodical literature.

Type	Sensational Periodical	Popular/General Periodical	Substantive/Trade Periodical	Scholarly /Professional Journal
Format	Often Tabloid	Magazine, Newspaper	Magazine, Newspaper	Journal, Digest
Availability	Newsstands; grocery checkouts	Newsstands; grocery checkout lanes	Large newsstands; some are subscription only	Most are subscription only
Examples	Globe Hustler National Enquirer True Confessions	Bowhunter Car & Driver Esquire Hot Rod GQ Glamour Good Housekeeping Ladies Home Journal Sporting News Sports Illustrated YM	Athletic Business Ceramics Monthly Economist Forbes Fortune Nation New Scientist New York Times Newsweek Process Engineering Wall Street Journal	Accounts of Chemical Research Business Strategy Review Eighteenth-Century Studies IEEE Transactions on Networking Journal of Reading Journal of Southern History Marine Mammal Science New England Journal of Medicine SIAM Review Sport Psychologist Topics in Stroke Management
Focus	Incredible, gossipy, lurid, steamy, sleazy; may be deliberately rude and/or non-PC	Current scene, current interest, fun stuff, leisure-time activities	Serious information for concerned readers, current events, some retrospective items	Reports of current research; historical inquiry
Authors & Credentials	Freelance or staff writer; anonymous articles; some articles signed; credentials not stated	Freelance or staff writer; may be subject specialists; mostly signed articles; credentials sometimes noted	Freelance subject specialist or staff writer; generally signed; if staff, affiliations are usually noted	Scholar, researcher, or specialist; signed articles; institutional affiliations/credentials noted.
Type	Sensational Periodical	Popular/General Periodical	Substantive/Trade Periodical	Scholarly /Professional Journal
Writing Style & Audience	Simple, sometimes gross or inane, "folksy," brief articles for the general public	Light reading; brief to medium length articles for lay audiences	Serious articles and/or lengthy essays; educated, literate generalists and specialists	Serious literature of a technical nature written in the language of the discipline; lengthy; scholarly and professional
Footnotes & Bibliography	Never	Never	Rarely	Almost Always; may be identified as Acknowledgements, Bibliography, Endnotes, Footnotes, Literature Cited, Notes, References, References Cited, Related Readings, Useful References, Works Cited, etc.
Abstract	Never	Never	Occasionally	Often; may be identified as Abstract, Overview; precedes body of text & may be in Italics
Review of the Literature	Never	Never	Occasionally	Often; appears early in article to provide background information
Type	Sensational Periodical	Popular/General Periodical	Substantive/Trade Periodical	Scholarly /Professional Journal
Illustrations	Photographs	Color Photographs, some line drawings	Photographs, line drawings, charts & graphs	Few photographs; line drawings, charts & graphs, little color
Advertising	Much for mass market products	Much for mass market products, some specialty items	Much for both mass market & specialty products	Little or no advertising; some journals accept ads for specialty products
Publisher	Commercial press	Commercial press	Commercial press; Professional organization	Professional organization; non-profit association; commercial scholarly press

For more information about using research databases to find articles, see Databases I, II, III, IV, and Quick Search in this tutorial.

To go to the next page in the Research Strategies tutorial, click Databases I.

Need Help?

Get help via IM, email (Reference_Services@Shawnee.edu), or by phoning (740.351.3321).

If you prefer face-to-face assistance, stop by the Clark Memorial Library Reference Counter or schedule a Research Consultation with a Reference Librarian.

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