Journal Article Search 1.Go to the Newman Library webpage ( 2.Select All Databases, A-Z which opens a second page. 3.A large list of databases then opens with those beginning with A shown. 4.Select a good database for engineering/physics. Note that some of these databases require that you use a computer with a VT IP address or use the authentication proxy when off campus a.IEEE Xplore – searches all of the IEEE journals and conference proceedings. Has direct links to the articles. b.Science Direct Ejournals – reasonable selection of non-IEEE journals. Usually has a direct link to the article. c.Web of Science – searches through several databases, tabulates the number of publications have cited the articles found during the search, and can link you to these other papers. Contains some direct links to articles, but you usually have to go to the electronic versions of the journals and download them. d.INSPEC – better selection of journals including IEEE journals. Usually has direct links to the articles. e.Ingenta – covers a lot of science (non-engineering) journals, many of which are not available electronically through the library website. It looks like you have to pay to download some of the articles, but the charge is actually sent to the VT library.

Journal Search Con’t 6. Pick some appropriate key words and initiate a search a.Sometimes I use Google to develop my search words by looking at the webpages of faculty who are involved in research on a particular topicGoogle b.Usually, the key word for a semiconductor is their chemical name (i.e., Si, not silicon; GaAs, not gallium arsenide) 7.Most articles may be downloaded as.pdf files a.Document charges are indicated on hits on Ingenta that are from journals not subscripted to by the library. You can order these papers and the charges will be picked up by the library after you have logged in as a registered user. You should not have to pay for them personally. b.See slides for information on how to get the articles that are not linked directly in search database.

Click here first if you are using an off- campus computer

You can enter words in the Basic Search window or select one of these options to start a search

You can select Advance Search to help restrict the number of hits obtained if your Quick Search yields a large number of articles that are off your topic. Enter your key words here

This pull-down list allows you to select how your keywords are used during the search

Chose this option if you want to find papers that reference one that you have already found. You can reduce the time frame for the publication search Science should be checked. Having the others checked does not slow the search that much.

Click here to display the abstract. Click here to display the full text of the paper. Click here to see the list of publications that cite this particular paper. You can then select the abstract or full text of these papers.

Click here to start a search using this author’s name. Click here to display links to the papers referenced by the authors in this paper. Links to the papers that cite this paper are also available on this sidebar.

Words can be concatenated together using AND or OR between them

Getting electronic versions Sometimes you see a great paper, but you can’t get to the.pdf –This usually happens when you are using an off-campus computer –It sometime happens that the university does have a license to electronically access articles from that particular journal, but not through that database. Go back to Select Ejournals Enter the part or all of the journal’s name (no abbreviations) in which the paper is published. If the university has a license to the electronic version of the journal, the journal name will be linked to the publisher’s website. –You can then browse or search the archives of the journal to find the paper that you are interested. This is not straight-forwards with some of the journals. –Some of the journals will not allow you access off-campus even if you have logged in properly through the VT site – sorry.

Drop down menu allows you to use parts of a journal name if you can’t remember the exact title

If it isn’t available electronically Some of the searches may identify articles that are not available electronically through the search engine or on- line through Ejournals. –Go to the online catalog - Addison and see if the library has a hard copy of the journal. Then, go to the library to find it. –You can request that the library order a copy of the article. They will only do this for you if they do not have either the electronic or hard copy of the journal. Use the interlibrary form available at Note that this can take upwards of 1-2 weeks for the library to obtain the article for you so plan accordingly, though it is usually much faster. You have to register for this service. You can’t have any overdue books or fines to use this service.

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