Locating the RIGHT Article
We have already covered Peer-Review in Section One. However, we haven't really discussed where you can find Peer-Reviewed Articles.
Where Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?
Some library databases contain only articles from peer-reviewed journals, but many contain a mix of peer-reviewed journal articles, trade and popular magazine articles, newspaper articles, reports, and more. You may also be looking for more than just peer-reviewed journal articles and in that case, a mix isn't a bad thing. If you want only peer-reviewed articles, limit your search. Some databases offer a checkbox that accomplishes this:
Keep in mind that even within scholarly journals, there are non-peer-reviewed articles such as book reviews and editorials. These will be in your results when you apply this limiter.
How Do I Know if the Article I've Found is Peer-Reviewed?
Peer-reviewed journal articles usually have the following elements:
- Written by an expert in that subject area. Check the credentials of the author.
- Contain a literature review to engage with previous research within the field.
- Contain a list of references either in footnotes or a bibliography.
- Try a different database: If you were using a subject-specific database, try Discovery or Academic Search Complete.
- Use fewer search terms or make the terms more general: Try a small number of keywords. Based on the results, determine if you need to add more terms or try different terms.
- Brainstorm synonyms and add them to your search with OR between them: For example: salary OR pay OR wages OR earnings
- Broaden your topic: You may not need to choose a different topic, but you may need to think more broadly about your topic.
- Consider if your topic is too recent. You're not going to find peer-reviewed articles on something that happened a few months ago, but you might find newspaper and magazine articles.
- Look at your search terms. Can they be more specific? Do you have too few terms?
- Check how your terms are combined. Make sure you are not using OR between terms that mean different things, for example women OR salary, which will get you a lot of irrelevant results.
- Consider if your topic is too broad. You may need to narrow in on more specific aspects of your topic and search these individually.
- Can you apply limiters? Limiters (such as date and format) give you a more targeted results list. Do you need to only use scholarly peer-reviewed articles? Should your sources be fairly recent? Most databases have ways to limit your results.
Databases
These databases are reference resources and contain encyclopedias, dictionaries, and congressional reports made up of popular sources (newspapers, reports, websites, etc.) These databases are here to help you learn more about the topic you are researching. These resources are great at helping you put your topic in context and identifying related concepts and keywords you can use to find more about your topic in the other databases.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowCredo Reference is a general reference solution for learners and librarians. Offering 551 hundred highly-regarded titles from over 70 publishers; Credo General Reference covers every major subject. Credo Reference is an online reference service made up of full-text books from the world's best publishers. Whether you're working on a research paper, trying to win trivia or just curious, Credo Reference has something for you.
- Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new windowGale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7.
- CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new windowA database of in-depth, authoritative reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time.
Newspapers are NOT peer-reviewed resources BUT can be great for adding local perspective on the topic you are researching. It might be difficult to find perspective, opinions, or even recent updates in peer-reviewed articles, newspapers can help with this.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowOffers full-text online news, business, legal, legislative, and regulatory information, updated daily.
- Access World News This link opens in a new windowAccess World News is a comprehensive resource that includes a variety of news publications worldwide. These sources include major national and international newspapers, as well as local and regional titles as well as newswires, blogs, web-only content, videos, journals, magazines, transcripts and more.
- New York Times This link opens in a new windowHow to Activate an LSU New York Times Account
1. Select the link above
2. Select from the search Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College - Baton Rouge, LA
3. Enter all of the requested information and use your LSU email on the registration form and click Sign Up.
4. Once you create your log-in credentials, you will be able to log in using nytimes.com where access is unlimited.
5. Faculty and staff must register every four years. Student access reflects the estimated graduation date.
LSU's access includes New York Times InEducation which provides curated reading lists across several disciplines of study. To access the InEducation tool, users must activate their News subscription and log in using the same account information.
Funding for LSU's New York Times access was provided by LSU Student Government and LSU Libraries.
These databases contain multiple different types of sources so be sure to filter to only "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" sources. If we don't have access to a journal article, we can get it via Interlibrary Loan (see the welcome page).
- Agricola This link opens in a new windowContaining bibliographic records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library, this source provides access to millions of citations. The citations are comprised of journal articles, book chapters, theses and much more, all relating to the field of agriculture.
- CABI Digital Library This link opens in a new windowIncluding the CAB Abstracts and CAB Health, this is the leading database for literature related to agriculture and applied life sciences, including strong international coverage.
- DiscoveryDiscovery is the default search for LSU libraries. It searches about 80% of the journal articles and all of the eBooks and print books owned by the library. This is the best place to start your research.
- Public Administration Abstracts This link opens in a new windowPublic Administration Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to public administration, including public administration theory, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. The index contains more than 93,600 records, which are carefully selected from the most important sources within the discipline.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowScienceDirect, published by Elsevier Science, serves as a web information source for scientific, technical, and medical (STM) research. It offers access to thousands of journals in many fields of science, including the social sciences.
PLEASE NOTE: Excessive printing and downloading, even through available functionality on ScienceDirect, is not permitted under our license and will result in loss of access and possible disciplinary action. - Statista This link opens in a new windowStatista offers over 1.5 million statistics and facts on more than 60,000 topics drawn from over 18,000 different sources, including market researchers, trade organizations, scientific journals, and government databases. The data is aggregated by a dedicated team of researchers and statisticians who are experts in the 20 market and industry sectors covered. For each data set, extensive source information is provided as well as several download formats for direct integration into various end products.
- Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide This link opens in a new windowOffering a global perspective, this resource is the world's largest index to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Comprehensive coverage includes bibliographic records, many of which include abstracts, covering a variety of topic areas.