Guides: TGC: The Great Conversation: Find Sources

students reading in front of periodical display

Also known as peer-reviewed articles, scholarly articles are sources that are:

written by experts in the field
reviewed by other experts in the field (hence the peer-reviewed)
intended for an academic audience

While you can find scholarly articles through general search engines, databases contain a feature where you can narrow your results to only scholarly articles.

Find Articles in Multidisciplinary Databases:

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate offers access to resources cited in key subject indexes. The combination of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more.
Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning. Includes extensive coverage in key subject areas such as biology, chemistry, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.

Find Subject-Specific Articles:

Art, History, & English

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A collection of core scholarly journals, many going back to the first volume. Emphasis is on back issue coverage and does not include the current 3-5 years, unless Gordon has a current subscription to the journal. JSTOR provides long term preservation for journals.

Biblical Studies

Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and full text of over 350 major religion and theology journals. Coverage begins in 1908.

Biology

BioOne Complete This link opens in a new window
Search and browse bioscience research journals published by small societies and other not-for-profit organizations. BioOne Complete is an initiative to provide access to journals focused on the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
For search by Publication Type, see PubMed's subject term guide: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/pubtypes.html

Economics & Business

Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
Scholarly business journals and publications covering marketing, management, accounting, finance and economics. Business Source Premier also includes market research reports, industry reports, country reports, company profiles and SWOT analyses.

Education

ERIC This link opens in a new window
Articles, research reports, and digests from education-related journals and the U.S. Department of Education.

Music

Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window
Offers scholarly perspectives on a wide range of topics: musical concepts, music history, compositional practice, and more. Includes biographies, images, musical examples, and links to audio and video. Includes updated versions of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music.

Political Science

HeinOnline Academic This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline Academic includes more than 100 million pages of multidisciplinary content in more than 100 subject areas, including history, political science, criminal justice, religious studies, international relations, women’s studies, pre-law, and many more.

Psychology, Sociology, & Social Work

APA PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 200,000 full-text articles published by the American Psychological Association and affiliated journals.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive sociology research database that contains full text for more than 630 journals and magazines, as well as books, monographs, and conference papers. Covers various areas of study including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, racial studies, religion and social work.

Forming your Search String

The more complicated your question, the less likely a search engine can understand it. To get the best result, identify keywords and like terms to create a search string.

Example research question: How does video gaming impact interpersonal relationships in teenagers?

Keywords: Video gaming, interpersonal relationships, teenagers

Like terms can include synonyms and also examples of your keywords. If you don't get results from searching your keywords, it doesn't mean that the research doesn't exist. It could mean that the researcher used different language to describe the same topic

Video gaming: Xbox, MMORPG, computer game
Interpersonal relationships: friendship, dating
Teenagers: High schooler, adolescent, young adult

Search strings connect your keywords and like terms together for the best results.

Too many results? Use AND to narrow results

video gaming AND interpersonal relationships AND teenagers

Too few results? Use OR to broaden results

video gaming OR Xbox AND interpersonal relationships OR friendship AND teenagers OR adolescent

Student thumbing through a book in front of library stacks

Books and eBooks often provide a broader overview and cover more information than a scholarly journal article.

You don't need to read an entire book to use it in your research. Use the index at the back of a book to find the information you need.

To find books and eBooks, you can either:

Search the NOBLE catalog

NOBLE Catalog Search
Search the Jenks Library catalog for books, eBooks, audiobooks, scores, etc.

Browse the stacks for a book related to your topic

Stack 1: A-B

General Works, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion

Stack 2: C-HC

Auxiliary Science of History, World History, American History, Local History, Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Social Sciences

Stack 3: HD-M

Social Sciences, Political Sciences, Law, Education, Music

Stack 4: N-PR

Fine Arts, Language, Literature

Stack 5: PS-Z

Literature, Science, Medicine, Agriculture, Technology, Military Science, Naval Science, Library Science

Find more information on the Library of Congress classifications here.

Quick Way to Cite

Screenshot of Cite box on EBSCO database showing a formatted MLA citation that you can copy and paste

If you found an article on a database, look for the Cite button to get a formatted citation for your Works Cited, in less time than it takes for EasyBib to load.

Download Zotero
Step 1: Download the app from Zotero.org.
Step 2: Add the Zotero Connector to your preferred web browser.
Step 3: Register for a Zotero account.
Step 4: Adjust preferences settings in the app.

MLA Citations

The Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style is most commonly used in humanities disciplines such as English, foreign languages, literary criticism and comparative literature, and cultural studies.

MLA Handbook by The Modern Language; The Modern Language Association of America
Call Number: Ref. LB 2369 .M52 2021
ISBN: 9781603293518
Publication Date: 2021-05-30

MLA Sample Paper
Look at this MLA sample paper from Purdue OWL to help format your paper.
MLA FAQs
Check out frequently asked questions about MLA from Purdue OWL.

If you find an article or book that you can't access, don't pay for it! Instead, submit an Interlibrary Loan request, and you'll receive articles within a few days!

Interlibrary Loan: Article & Book Request
Can't find the article or book you're looking for at Gordon? Fill out the Interlibrary Loan request form and we'll track the article or book down for you!

Are you looking for a specific article, like an article that you found referenced in a bibliography? Search for the journal in Journal Finder, linked below:

Browse Journal Finder
Find individual journals and search within specific publications.