Articles: What They Are & How to Find Them
Publications containing articles are referred to as periodicals and come in many forms:
- scholarly journals
- trade journals
- popular magazines
- newspapers
Find out more about the different types of periodicals by looking at the Magazine vs. Journals chart from the Austin Community College Library Services department.
Articles provide current information including news, opinions, and research. As a college student, you will not be using magazines like People, Ladies Home Journal, Sports Illustrated, or Vogue. Your instructors expect you to find articles in scholarly journals for your research.
The best place to find articles is to search the Library's databases. While they contain magazines, journals, and newspapers, some databases may also contain reference books, video files, audio files, and podcasts. The Database Searching guide can help you better understand databases and database searching.
What database will help you find the best articles for this project? Browse Databases by Subject or look at an A-Z list of all databases available through Kirtland's Library.
Searching the Databases off-campus? Use your Single Sign-On username and password to access.
Primary Sources
Is your instructor requiring primary source articles for your project and you are not sure what they are and where to find them? Check out the Primary Sources guide for more information.
A Video on How to Search Databases (4:28)
Databases:
- provide 24/7 access to academic journals, magazines, newspapers, books, video clips, and audio clips.
- give you access to things you may not find with a Google search
- make it easier for you to find better information while spending less time searching
- can be limited to show you results that are peer-reviewed or the most recent content
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Some journal articles are peer reviewed. These articles carry more authority than other articles because their content has been reviewed by subject experts (peers) prior to publication. Databases allow you to limit your search to peer reviewed materials. By doing so, you assure that the resources you are using are reliable and acceptable for scholarly work.
Under Advanced Search on many databases, you can limit your search to only peer reviewed articles as seen in the image below.
