Politics and the Mass Media (POL 40112): Finding Articles in Academic Journals

Many of our databases will give you the full-text of the article, but that is not always the case.  If the full-text of the article is not available in the database you are looking at, try these options:

• look for the FIND IT icon:  if the database does not have the full-text, you still might be able to get it from another of our resources.  If we have full-text available, FIND IT will lead you to it. 
• if you already have a citation, you can check to see if we have a particular journal (in print or electronic full-text) by using the Journal Finder  Search by the journal name -- you will need to know the year, volume, issue and pages you need.
• If we don't have an article in electronic full-text, but DO have it in print, you can request a copy be scanned and emailed to you.  You can find out more on the Article E-Delivery page.

When searching in the databases for articles the following tips may help you.

* This is the truncation symbol, it searches for variations of your term. For example: teach* will return: teaches, teacher, teachers, teaching

AND - Use the word AND when you want to combine search terms (this will reduce the number of items found). For example: repeated reading AND fluency will find articles that discuss repeated reading and fluency.

OR - Use the word OR when you are searching for a topic that may have different names (this will expand the number of items found). For example: reading aloud OR oral reading will find articles with any of these words.

NOT - Use the word NOT when you want to exclude certain terms from your results. For example: qualitative NOT mixed methods will find articles that talk about qualitative research but exclude any that are mixed methods.