Finding articles

Scholarly articles are the bread and butter of a lot of the research you will be asked to do as a student at WCU. They are not inherently better than any other genre of writing, but they do have a specific purpose and unique production/publication process that results in an end product that looks much different from other writing with which you may be familiar.

Follow the Prezi below to learn more about the differences between scholarly and non-scholarly articles and then use the links in the Databases box to start searching for scholarly articles related to your topic.

Scholarly and Non-scholarly Periodicals

Scholarly v. Non-scholarly Periodicals - text-based version
This is a text version of the above Prezi.

For more information about scholarly and non-scholarly sources, follow the links below.

Databases

Scholarly articles (and other publications):

Criminal Justice Database This link opens in a new window
An index to over 100 U.S., British, and Canadian journals in criminal justice and related disciplines.
PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive, international index to the literature of psychology: journals, dissertations, book chapters, and more. Includes abstracts and links to available full-text articles.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
This major research database for Sociology indexes over 3,300 journal and other titles. It contains full text for 242 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895 and 72 "priority" coverage journals. The database also includes full text for 547 books and 6,711 conference papers. In addition there is a 15,600 term sociology-specific thesaurus and searchable cited references.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Premier covers the expansive academic disciplines offered in colleges and universities. It provides comprehensive content, including PDF backfiles to 1975 for many journals and searchable cited references for more than 1,000 titles.
Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) This link opens in a new window
A database of policy related documents on homeland security. It is organized to support local, state and federal decision-making and analysis and structured to assist scholars and academics in homeland security research.
SAGE Journals This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to SAGE electronic journals published in criminal justice, health care, the social sciences, humanities, and education. Search by topic or browse titles by subject area. Most appropriate for intermediate or advanced users.
Political Extremism and Radicalism This link opens in a new window
Covers a broad assortment of both far-right and radical left political groups. It offers a diverse mixture of materials, including periodicals, campaign propaganda, government records, oral histories, and various ephemera, which allow researchers to explore unorthodox social and political movements in new and innovative ways and to understand the impact they have had on today’s society.

Legal resources:

Westlaw Campus Research (Thomson Reuters) This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive collection of legal, news, and business-related resources. Includes analytical and primary law sources, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, company data, TV and radio news transcripts, foreign language news, and more.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
You can use Google Scholar to find case law. Just click on the case law button under the search box.

Find and Save Articles

Step One: In the box below, select a database to start your search (both Criminal Justice Database and SocINDEX are great starting points).

Step Two: Use the keywords you generated to start your search. Start broad at first and add additional terms to narrow your results. Look at the two screenshots below and note how the addition of an additional search term in the second screenshot has dramatically reduced the number of results.

Step Four: Use the limiters on the right-hand side of the results page to narrow your search results to scholarly journals.

Step Five: When you find an article that seems like a good fit for your research, click on the link to see the full text. The links for full text typically look like those highlighted below.

Step Six: Read the article's abstract. If it seems relevant, move to Step Seven. If it doesn't seem relevant, go back to Step Five and try again.

Step Seven: You'll want to save relevant articles to refer to later. The menu of options differ with each database or journal package. Below is an example of the options you might see:

For this article, you can download and save a PDF, print the article, email it to yourself, or select all options to see additional ways to save the article. You can also auto-generate a citation in a number of styles. Caution: Always double-check the citation before you use it. They are not guaranteed to be 100% correct every time.

Final Thoughts: Often when you open a link in an academic database, the content you see is session-specific. That means if you leave your browser tab open for too long, copy/paste the URL from the search bar, or bookmark the page the article is on, you may lose it. If you want to ensure you'll be able to get back to the article later, always use the permanent link option (it usually looks like a chain, see below).

CJ 280/EDM 260: Research Methods in CJ/EDM - Cline

Peer Review