The following brief video will introduce students to identifying scholarly / peer reviewed sources in databases.
How do I search for articles?
The first step to finding articles is to pick your keywords. The video below explains the process of going form a research question, to keywords, and then searching.
These types of articles are ONLY found in Scholarly Journals. The best way to access scholarly journals is through JETfind or our databases. To limit to peer-review only, look for a box where you can check 'peer-reviewed'.
What is a Peer-Reviewed or Scholarly Article?
Often, a Professor will specify that articles need to be peer-reviewed, scholarly or refereed (they all mean the same thing). A peer-review process means that other experts in the field reviewed the article's content prior to publication and determined it was scholarly.
Yes, there is Google Scholar, but often times once an article is finally located there is a fee to obtain it. Always check JET Library databases first, where access to everything is FREE.
Once inside of Molloy's Journal Locator, you can easily see what is peer reviewed or open access. Simply enter the Journal Locator from the Library Homepage or just follow this link. The example below is for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Note the graduation cap icon, this is an indicator that the journal is peer-reviewed.
Also, in the upper left you can sort your results by either peer-reviewed or open access. Next, by selecting the down arrow to the right of Journal Details, you'll get much more information about the journal provided by Molloy's Ulrich's subscription.
If you require more information, such as title changes, year/location/frequency of publication, reviews or indexing information, select the link "More from Ulrichsweb.com." Note, if you are off campus, you will be asked to authenticate in order to access this subscription.
Why would you care about this?
Cited references are good, because they offer related articles and if available, hyperlinks to access them. In this way, students maybe able to find a multitude of resources just by clicking into a single article result. Here's how it works:
When a user initiates a Basic or Advanced keyword search, appropriate Cited References or Times Cited in this Database links are presented with the search results. When clicked, a Cited References link will present a list of records cited in the original article. If a user selects one or more of those references, and then clicks the Related Records button, the References sub-tab will present a list of records related to the original article. These records are sorted by relevance, based on the greatest number of shared cited references.
If a user clicks the Times Cited in this Database link on a result, the Citing Articles sub-tab will present a list of records that cite the original article. Cited References and Times Cited in this Database links are also displayed on the article detail page.
Additionally, users can search by Cited References. This functionality can be found on the search screen's toolbar button labeled Cited References. On the Cited References search screen, users can enter search terms in any or all of these fields: Cited Author, Cited Title, Cited Source, Cited Year or All Citation Fields, and then conduct a search.*
*information courtesy of EBSCO publishing.
In JETfind or a database, if you receive zero results, CHECK THE FOLLOWING:
Still not getting what you want? Ask a Librarian!