LM Week 3 (Extras)

Article Databases

Databases are categorized by the type of information available: General or multi-subject databases have articles and information on many different subjects. These are good databases to begin your research. Examples are Academic Search Premier and ProQuest Newsstand. Subject databases have periodicals focused on a specific subject, such as psychology, education, literature, etc. Examples are Communication and Mass Media Complete, ERIC, JSTOR, and PsychINFO. Depending on the amount of information available in the database records, databases are also categorized as: Full text databases when they contain the full text of the article. Examples are Academic Search Premier, ProQuest Newsstand, CQ Researcher, etc. Abstract databases when they contain the citation information (title, author, publication, etc.) and the summary, or abstract, of the article. Examples are ComAbstracts and Historical Abstracts. Citation databases when they contain only the citation information (title, author, publication, etc.), of the article. Example: MLA International Bibliography.

Library Databases

Databases are organized collections of related information. Every database contains only certain types and amounts of information and can have these characteristics: Specific kinds of documents (e.g., journals, magazines, books, software) Cover only certain subject areas (e.g., sociology, music, chemistry) Cover only certain time periods (e.g., current, 1990 to present, historic) Have records available in several languages Have certain publication types (e.g., scholarly, popular, newspapers) Have certain information available (e.g., whole article or just a brief description and abstract)

Fields:

Each record is divided into smaller sets of information called fields. A field is a single piece of information.

Popular and Scholarly Sources

Popular publications are non-expert sources intended to inform and entertain the general public. Magazines like Time and Rolling Stone are examples. Other examples of popular sources are newspapers, television and radio shows, and videos. Popular magazines and newspapers publish articles written for a general audience. Advertising is abundant. Articles rarely have bibliographies or references. Scholarly publications are written by experts and intended for an expert audience. These sources are usually refereed or peer-reviewed (accepted for publication based on recommendations from recognized experts in their fields). Examples of scholarly sources are scholarly journals, books, and documentaries. Scholarly journals publish articles written by scholars and researchers. Articles are written for specialized audiences, typically report research in that field, and usually have references or bibliographies. For a demo of clues to look for when identifying scholarly articles, see Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original intellectual content: artistic works, diaries, newspaper reports witnessed by someone from the time of the event, memoirs, speeches, government reports & statistics, or another source of evidence written or created during the time under study. Primary sources generally serve as foundation material for a subject area. Primary sources allow researchers to analyze the data or object for themselves in order to come up with alternate theories and opinions. Primary sources can be speeches, letters, interviews, news programs, official records, novels, art, music, and scholarly journal articles reporting NEW research findings. Secondary sources interpret, analyze, or comment on primary sources. Secondary sources can be encyclopedias, books, newspaper articles, reviews, critical essays, journal articles, or textbooks. When a writer looks at a primary document, and produces a work that tries to make sense of what he or she finds, the result is a secondary study or secondary source. A secondary source is any source about an event, period, or issue in history that was produced after that event, period or issue has passed. The most commonly assigned secondary source in college writing is a scholarly monograph - a volume on a specific subject in the past, written by an expert. Also common are articles in scholarly journals, which are similar to monographs, but on a smaller, more focused scale.

Record:

These are the building blocks of a database - the articles or lists of articles that you find when you search the database.

Academic Search Premier

You'll find articles on most subjects from different types of periodicals such as newspapers, magazines, and journals. You'll find both popular and scholarly articles and most of the articles you find are available as full text or linked to full text in another SUU database. If the article you want is not available in full text you should check the eJournal Finder to see if it is available in another database. Request the article from Interlibrary Loan if you find the journal is not available.