Popular Magazines vs. Scholarly Journals
Magazines
	Journals
	
Usually will have color photographs and contain advertising.	Usually will have illustrations that support the text, such as tables of statistics, graphs, maps, or photographs	
Sold at newsstands, the supermarket, bookstores, or online.	Generally available only through subscriptions or as a part of an association membership.	
Articles are usually short, with no more than 5 or 6 pages.

Articles do not necessarily follow a specific format or structure.	Articles are usually lengthy, some as long as 30 pages.

Articles usually are more structured, and may include: an abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and a bibliography.	
Articles are written for a general audience, using everyday vocabulary.	Articles are written for a college level audience.	
Articles are written with a single point of view, and will openly present a biased opinion.

Articles are not evaluated by experts in the field, but by editors on staff.	The authors of the articles will go to great lengths to give a balanced approach to the subject.

Articles usually reviewed and critically evaluated by a board of experts in the field.	
Published weekly or monthly.	Published monthly or quarterly (4 times a year).	
Examples:
People Magazine
Time Magazine
Newsweek	JAMA
Journal of American History
North American Review
New England Journal of Medicine	

Printed Indexes to Periodicals
•	Print Indexes list citations of articles by topic. These indexes are issued monthly and then combined for a bound annual issue.
•	Print Indexes to Popular Magazines
o	The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature - is a reference guide to recently published articles in periodical magazines and scholarly journals, organized by article subject.
•	Newspaper Indexes
o	Los Angeles Times
o	New York Times
o	Christian Science Monitor
Specialized Print Periodical Indexes
•	Social Sciences
•	Humanities Index
•	Art Index
•	Education Index
•	Business Periodicals Index
•	Biography Index
Periodical Databases
Proquest:
•	2,400 periodical titles indexed on many subjects; more than half are full text.
•	Includes articles from magazines, scholarly journals and newspapers.
SIRS: 
•	Includes articles from popular magazines and local and national newspapers
•	Has government reports and current issues
•	Is searchable by keyword and subject searching
What Database should I use?
To find Magazine and Newspaper Articles?	To find scholarly journals and trade publications?	
Proquest
SIRS	Proquest (Peer Reviewed) 
	
Opposing Viewpoints
CQ Researcher	Literature Resource Center
JSTOR 	

Printed Indexes: Advantages and Disadvantages
Printed Indexes: Advantages	Printed Indexes: Disadvantages	
Printed Indexes give access to articles published, before the 1990’s.
Contains older periodicals not online.	There is a 4-6 week delay in publishing Printed Indexes, so the information is not current.  	
Subject access with “controlled vocabulary” is often better in print indexes, with more relevant searches and less false hits.	Using Printed Indexes is a two step process because they do not include full text.	
It can be easier to get an overview using Printed Indexes. 	Most libraries only subscribe to some of the periodicals listed in an index. 	

Periodical Databases: Advantages and Disadvantages
Periodical Databases: Advantages	Periodical Databases: Disadvantages	
Can require only one step if the database has the full text of the article.	Coverage may be selective based on licensing and may include only selected articles. 	
Information can be more current and up-to-date, with much less lag time.	Full text may not include images, charts or photos. 	
Searching is made easy by using keywords and links provide easy article access.  	May only cover a limited number of years. 	

Periodical Literature Vocabulary
Citation: Key elements of information that can be used to identify an article. This information may include: author, article title, periodical title, volume & issue, date and pages. 
 Index: Lists citations of articles for locating the item; a periodicals index arranges articles from a variety of publications by subject.
Abstract: A brief summary of the key concepts of the article – does not contain all the words. 
Full Text: Contains all the words of the original article. 

Popular vs. Scholarly Periodicals 
Popular	Scholarly Periodicals	
Magazines & Newspapers	Journals & Conference Proceedings	
General Readership	Limited Readership	
Informative Articles & News 	Research Oriented, 
may be “peer reviewed”	

Ways to Find Periodical Articles
•	Printed Indexes and Printed Abstracts
•	Electronic Databases
o	Index & abstract databases
o	Full Text databases
•	Internet
o	Publisher websites example: www.time.com for Time magazine. 
o	Selective access to recent issues for free
o	Most internet sites for scholarly journals charge a fee to view the full text
o	Some open access scholarly journals – provide free full text
Electronic Databases
What is a database? 
•	A set of related information stored electronically
•	Many databases contain electronic versions (full text) of published articles.
•	Many databases contain citations and articles just on a certain subject.
•	You need to know what subject matter is contained in a database before using it. 
Types of Databases: 
•	Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) – Holds information about books and other media in the library
•	CD-ROM \ DVD-ROM Databases – Holds information found on a CD-ROM \ DVD-ROM.
•	Electronic Databases
o	Index & abstract databases
o	Full Text databases
•	Internet Search engines are databases of webpages 

Database Vocabulary
•	Controlled Vocabulary
o	Standardized subjects, fields and formats
o	Stop Words – words that are ignored in a search:
o	Usually: a, an, by, from, in of, to, with
•	Records =  entries in a database that contain information
o	These results may be “full text”, abstract or just the citation of an article.
•	Results List
o	List of the entries that results from your search
•	Online – stored remotely on a network and accessed locally on a computer 
•	Keyword Searching – 
o	Allows searching for individual words within the full record or part of the record.
o	Most databases allow searching for combinations of keywords.
•	Search Commands and operators
o	Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
o	Truncation: Allow for multiple ending and spellings
o	Truncation examples: Teen* would search for (Teenage, Teenagers, Teens etc.)
o	Wom#n would search for (Woman or Women) 
Access Points of Electronic Searching
•	Field Searches 
o	Author Search
o	Title Search
o	Subject Search
o	Periodical or Source
•	Keyword Search
o	Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
o	Truncating Search Terms (? * #)
o	Quotes to indicate phrases - “search terms in quotes” 
o	Menu or template choices (selected fields)  

Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
•	Use Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT to combine or eliminate words in your search
o	Examples:
o	Teenagers AND Drinking – Both words must appear in the search results
o	Teenagers OR Drinking – Either word OR Both words may appear in the search results
o	Teenagers AND Drinking NOT Beer - Both Teenagers AND Drinking  must appear in the search results but NOT the word “Beer”
•	Searching for Electronic Information is more flexible and efficient than searching a printed source because:
Information in Electronic Format – Advantages and Disadvantages
Electronic Format – Advantages	Electronic Format - Disadvantages	
Saves research time – more efficient than using print sources
	Databases usually contain information that has recently been published
 (often only the past few years) 	
Allows for of resources that are not physically in the library
	There is a lack of standardization in “interface” search commands and techniques	
May be remotely accessed from outside the library
	Lack of “controlled vocabulary”	
Information is usually updated more frequently and Databases may be more current

	Keyword searching may result in false hits or too many results	
Information can be saved on a disk or emailed for later use
	Database content is limited to the library subscription.	
Allows multiple access points and truncation
	Not all articles found are “full text” 
Some records may contain just the article abstract	
Keyword searching allows combination searching 
“mix and match” linking word combinations that are not possible with “manual” searching