Citation Managers

Why is this important anyhow?

Whenever you cite an article - especially one obtained electronically - you are asked to provide specific information regarding where the information was retrieved from. If you put the wrong information in the wrong spot, the Professor will not be able to verify your sources which could impact your grade on either the paper or the bibliography!

There are 4 levels associated with database articles,
from the top level down:

Aggregator (Vendor)

Aggregator (or vendor, if you prefer): this is the company that holds the databases. Examples of larger aggregators include EbscoHost and ProQuest. There is always only ONE aggregator for the purposes of citing the source. Note: Content from multiple aggregators can live in 'discovery' systems like Molloy's JETfind.

Databases

Databases live inside products like Ebsco and the larger aggregators can contain 25 databases or more. Examples of databases within Ebsco would include ERIC, Academic Search Premier, PsycARTICLES and Business Source Complete to name a few. Certain aggregators (e.g. LexisNexis,JSTOR) contain only one database; in these cases they are both the database and the aggregator. More on Databases...

Journals

Journals live inside of databases and there could be hundreds of them - they could be periodicals, newspapers, magazines or trade journals. Examples of a Journal would be The Chronicle of Higher Education or Teaching Exceptional Children. Most journals are uniquely identified by an 8 digit ISSN# (xxxx-xxxx). Journals are generally organized by volume, issue and page number(s). Some databases and aggregators (e.g. SAGE, ScienceDirect, PsycARTICLES) contain only peer-reviewed journals, but normally, this is not the case. So, once you have entered your keywords, always make sure to filter for either "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" results if that is a requirement from your Professor. More on finding journals...

Articles

Articles are contained within the journals and of course, there can be thousands of them. This is the bottom level that leads to the full text. The article level is what you see in the results page after you enter your keywords, but the Journal, Volume, Issue and Page Number(s) are always contained in the article’s abstract or citation. The DATABASE is normally indicated somewhere at the top of the page. All of this information is required in order to cite a journal article. More on finding articles...

Simply stated - this time from the bottom up: articles live in the journals, which live in the databases, which are accessible via an aggregator. Knowing the names and the components will help you keep your citations and your research organized.  

Important note regarding APA citations when citing online articles:  

APA style does not distinguish between articles accessed through a database and articles accessed via the Web. The exact citation formation will depend on whether the article has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) available. 

• If a journal article has a DOI, include the DOI in the reference.
• If the journal article does not have a DOI but does have a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online journal that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.
• Always include the issue number for a journal article.
• If the journal article does not have a DOI and is from an academic research database, end the reference after the page range (for an explanation of why, see the database information page). The reference in this case is the same as for a print journal article.
• Do not include database information in the reference unless the journal article comes from a database that publishes works of limited circulation or original, proprietary content, such as UpToDate.

Example: DOI

Example: no DOI

This example assumes you are citing from the Mental Measurements Yearbook online database:

Cizek, G.J. (2003). Test review of the Woodcock-Johnson III. From B. S. Plake, J. C. Impara, & R. A. Spies (Eds.), The fifteenth mental measurements yearbook [Electronic version]. Retrieved from the Buros Institute's Mental Measurement Yearbook Online database

A few tips on citing this resource:

• With each edition there will be different editors required for your citation - a convenient list of templates is provided courtesy of the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania library libguide. 
• It is required that you spell out the edition number, as illustrated in the example above fifteenth, not 15th. 

Need More Help With Citing Sources?

Then be sure to check out our full research guide on Writing & Citing for more information on citations (including citation managers available to you), writing thesis statements, plagiarism and much, much more.