Guide to Library Research 

Journal indexes or article databases describe individual articles in magazines and scholarly journals. They are organized by topic.

To find an article database relevant to your research topic, go to the Electronic Resources & Databases page via Find Resources on the library home page.

Select a broad subject areas which relates to your topic from the list on the left. Read the descriptions of the databases and select one that you think matches your topic.

For example, Social Sciences brings up 30 databases related to the social sciences, including anthropology, women’s issues, psychology, criminology and sociology.

• If you are uncertain and beginning research on a general topic, a good general database is EBSCO's Academic Search Premier. Click A in the alphabetical list and choose Academic Search Premier, or choose Academic Search Premier from the list below "Not for sure where to start?"

Contact a librarian if you need help selecting a search engine for magazine and journal articles.

• Don't enter your research question. Instead, enter your keywords or concepts. For more information on deciding on search terms, see Developing a Search Strategy.
• You might want to limit your articles to full-text if you do not have access to a college or university library.

1. Search the title and/or abstract fields instead of all fields or the entire text of the articles. The title and abstract are more likely to tell you what the article is actually about.

2. Add additional search terms using the Boolean operator AND. You will get a more specific subset of material focused on aspects of your topic. For example, searching for "smoking" AND "teenagers" will produce fewer and more focused results.

3. Apply other limits, such as Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) articles only. Scholarly articles are usually reviewed by a group of experts and are research-based or scientific in nature. For more information on scholarly articles, see Evaluating Resources. You can also limit by date if you want only the most recent material.

Once you find some articles on your topic, print, e-mail, download/save, or write down the citation information for each pertinent article. Downloading or saving citations on your computer makes creating a bibliography easier.

Article title: “Adolescents and smoking: The first puff may be the worst. ”
Author’s name(s): Klein, Johnathan D.
Source/Journal title: CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal
Volume number: 175
Date of publication: 8/1/2006
Page number(s): 262-263