Books in the Averett Library Catalog and Worldcat database cover broad topics with a long range or historical perspective. For the most current and specific scholarly and professional information, we turn to articles published in academic and professional journals, and newspapers. The library licenses nearly 20,000 journals and newspapers, 97% of them online.

If you are curious about journal titles offered by Averett in each field of study, you can browse them by subject in the Journal Locator. Without a specific citation in hand, however, this is a difficult and inefficient method of locating articles on a topic.

It is much easier to begin your search for articles with an academic periodical database in your area of interest. Databases are listed by subject and alphabetically by title.

Many academic databases provide the full text of cited articles. You can read the articles online, email them, save them to disk, or print them. Begin by selecting a web subject guide for your intended major or a course you enjoy. Click on "Articles," then select a database.

Academic OneFile (InfoTrac) is a database of scholarly articles covering all subjects in the Arts and Sciences, athletics, and professional fields. You can search this database with a single word or phrase, or focus your search by entering terms on two or three separate lines connected by the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT.

"global warming"
OR
"climate change"
AND
"polar ice cap"

Note the use of "OR" to retrieve all articles containing either term (the union of A+ B). Use "OR" when either term can represent your idea. The Boolean "OR" broadens your search, increasing the number of hits.

Connecting separate concepts with "AND" narrows the search by ensuring that both terms are mentioned in each article you retrieve (the intersection of A and B).

Enclosing words in quotations retrieves the exact phrase: "global warming."

When you retrieve results in Academic OneFile, the first records displayed are from academic journals. You can narrow your search further by selecting "Limit the results to peer reviewed publications."

"Academic" and "scholarly" are general terms meaning that the authors are professors or researchers. The article will indicate the authors' names and affliations (where they work or which organizations supported their research).

"Peer-reviewed" books and articles, on the other hand, are selected for publication by experts who assess the quality of the research and validity of the results based on their knowledge of the subject. To avoid personal bias, peer reviewers are not informed of the authors' names at the time of the review.

Note: The library databases include both full text and cited articles. Though it is sometimes an option, we recommend that you avoid limiting searches to articles with full text. With "Article Linker/Find it at Averett" you can link out from citations in one database to full text in other databases. Limiting your searches to full text means that you will never see those citations.

From the Library home page, select "Databases, A-Z" or "Find by Subject" and the subject research guide of your choice.

Connect to Academic OneFile in the a-z list, or under the "Articles" heading in a subject guide. Enter a search on your general topic without limits. Now, enter the same search, but limit results to peer reviewed publications.

By how many articles did you narrow the results in your second search?