Journal articles are great resources for diving in deep on a specific aspect of your topic. We have lots of great articles available for you to read online here at the library! Go over to our "Databases by Subject" page to see what you can find, or check out some of the featured journals and articles listed below.
Magazines and journals are called periodicals because they are issued on a regular or "periodic" basis – they might arrive daily, weekly, monthly, four times a year (quarterly), once a year (annually) or anything in between. Periodicals are usually separated into two major groups: popular and scholarly.
Use popular magazines when you need:
Use a Newspaper to:
Use scholarly journals (also called academic or scientific journals) when you need:
Scholarly journals are where the experts talk to each other. This is where the newest research and ideas are first published. Sometimes researchers develop their journal articles into books.
Scholarly articles can be challenging to understand. Keep a dictionary handy and read encyclopedia articles for background in the field.
Instructors frequently require scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Peer review is when another expert in the field reads the article before it is published in order to confirm that the methods used in the article conform to the requirements of the field.