CULT 29535: Education In A Democratic Society: Locating Articles

Faculty expect you to use professional and/ or scholarly articles for many assignments.  Popular magazines and websites will not provide the expert, professional, research-based information they require. 

Even within the professional and scholarly literature, different kinds of articles are written for different purposes and audiences.  Contents may include news, brief research reports, editorials, letters, commentaries, and book reviews in addition to longer research studies. 

Focus on selecting the articles that best meet your information needs and satisfy the requirements of your assignment.

Examine the article closely to confirm that a researcher, or team of researchers, is reporting the results of original, empirical research. It should indicate that the author(s) conducted research, ran surveys, did experiments, collected data, or otherwise gathered information. Research articles have a characteristic format that you will learn to recognize.

IMPORTANT! Not all of the articles appearing in scholarly journals are necessarily primary research articles.  Other types of articles include news stories, research reports, review articles, editorials, letters, and book reviews.

To find out whether full-text copies are available online, look for the HTML or PDF full-text links or use the Find It! link. 

The FindIt! link also provides information about library print holdings and includes a link for requesting copies of articles not available online.

Use Kent Interlibrary Loan service to request free copies of articles from journals not available online or at your home campus library.  Articles are delivered electronically within two business days. 

• This service requires one-time registration.  Be sure to use Salem Campus Library in the address line.
• You will receive an e-mail when the article is received and will be able to get most articles by linking to the URL provided in the e-mail message. 

Click here to learn to how to use the Journal Finder to find full-text, online and print journal articles from an article citation. 

How do I use the Journal Finder? 

Be sure to take advantage of database options to save and e-mail search results. 

Use the citation format tool to help format bibliographic references. 

Or try My EBSCOhost.  See the box to the right for details. 

My EBSCOhost is an option that allows you to set up a personal account that you can use to save searches and search results.  You can set up search alerts and journal alerts and add web pages to your personal folder. 

To begin click the Sign-In tab in the blue bar at the center of the web page displayed.  Then select create a new Account.