Accessing and searching for journals and wider material By Paul Biggs Librarian for Psychology, Sport & Exercise, Biology & Biomedical Sciences and Education p.biggs@staffs.ac.uk Title Slide

In This Session We Will Cover Define what a journal is and differentiate between journal titles and articles Introduce electronic databases Tips when searching and identifying keywords Using Summon to search for journal articles Look at databases for your subject area How to search for journal titles Using Google Scholar to search for journal articles Access newspapers Searching for academic material on the internet using Google Advanced search What we will cover in this session

Why use journals? Why not just use textbooks

Journals Journals like magazines, newspapers and annual reports are in a group of publications known as serials or periodicals. This is a term used to describe publications that are issued at regular intervals, either daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. You will need to carry out further reading as your studies progress. Why Use Journals? Timely – journals are published more often than books, as a result you will find up-to-date information in recent journals Authoritative – articles are written by experts and in peer reviewed journals the articles are screened by a ‘jury’ of other experts before they are published

Journals Journals can be divided into 3 types: Scholarly: written reports on research, articles are written by researchers or subject experts, articles are peer reviewed and include references and bibliographies   Trade and professional : Articles relate to an industry or profession, contain information about  products or services, cover current issues affecting an industry or profession   Popular magazines: Written to entertain, have a glossy appearance & photographs, information is reported second or third hand by freelance reporters     

Tips when searching Electronic Resources Think about your assignment question. Always try and identify keywords. Keywords can be taken from class literature and background reading as well! You can also use a Thesaurus to identify synonyms for keywords. This will widen your search It can be a good idea to have some keywords noted on a pad before you start to search the resources. You can also speak to us if you need further help familiarising yourself with all of our eResources Tips when searching electronic resources

Search Tips Techniques AND, OR & NOT are used to combine search terms… AND will find all search terms (probably the best to use as it narrows your searches) OR will find one or another or both NOT will exclude terms If you are looking for a particular phrase just typing it into a search box on a database may not give you the exact results you are looking for. However, if you use quotation marks “” you will get more exact hits as they search for the terms side by side For example, “Kingdoms of life”

Electronic Databases We have 100’s of databases at the university. These databases house journal titles. Inside these titles you will find articles. Just think of databases as giant electronic shelves. All you have to do is enter the correct keywords to locate your journal article! Summon can help you get what you want from these databases!

Using summon to search for journal articles Summon is a good place to begin searching for journal articles. Summon searches across all of our databases You can access Summon using the search box via the Subject Resource page: http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/articles

Use The limiters to narrow your searches You can limit your search looking for Scholarly & Peer Reviewed material. Always make sure Full Text is selected as well You can also narrow your search by discipline Don’t forget to also narrow your search by date! You might not want out of date material?

Access an article using summon To access an article using Summon select the Full Text Online link (you may be asked to sign in) You will be asked to log in using your username & password. You will then be able to download the article by selecting either a PDF icon or a download PDF button

What is an abstract? If you select preview below an article in Summon it will display an abstract. An abstract gives you a summary of the article so read it carefully

Summon will suggest searches If you select preview below an article on Summon will also suggest additional keywords and searches for you.

Summon will show you related articles Summon will also suggest similar articles for you. Just select the related articles link

Summon will suggest basic harvard Summon will also show you basic Harvard referencing. Although we suggest that you look at our more detailed Harvard guides for more information

Databases for your subject Navigate to the finding articles tab on your Subject Resource page http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/articles to see a full list of databases for your subject

Sciencedirect ScienceDirect is a useful database to search for Biology/Biomedical Science related journal articles. You are able to access it via the finding articles tab on your Subject Resource page http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/articles Our access to ScienceDirect means you can access items from 2000 – the present day We also have a number of guides on how to use ScienceDirect available via the guides and podcasts tab, on your Subject Resource page http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/guides

Search directly for journal titles You can search directly for individual eJournal titles. Access Your Subject Resource page via http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/articles

You can use Google Scholar You can use Google Scholar to search for journal articles Google Scholar is useful as it links to our collections and also has free Open Access materials It is worth using Scholar as a secondary resource after you have searched our own online resources If you are using Scholar Off Campus you will need to configure it so you can search our collections to find out how to do this visit http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/google

Newspapers We have a database called European Newsstream where you are able to access newspaper articles. Access it via the finding articles tab on the Subject Resource page http://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/biology/articles Newspapers

Searching for information on the Web You might need to use Google to search for information on the Internet. When using Google I would suggest using the Advanced Search Tool. This allows you to enter keywords and search specific Web Domains such as .gov.uk .ac.uk or .org.uk You can also specify the last time a document has been updated so you know that you are getting up to date material. Access the advanced search on Google here https://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search