Using Scholarly Journals Exercise

The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize you with searching in databases and interacting with scholarly journal citations / articles. When you are finished with this exercise you will be able to:

1. Navigate to the Library's database subject pages
2. Select a database and enter keywords
3. Read a citation and be able to identify its parts.
4. Distinguish the difference between popular and scholarly journals.
5. Annotate a full text article.

Connect to the Library’s home page at http://www.uwgb.edu/Library

Click on the "Databases By Subject" link towards the bottom of the green search box in the upper left:

Select the “Economics ” category. Note that this is not the only category you may find useful. Depending on your topic, databases in the general, social sciences, history, or business categories may also contain useful articles. If you are accessing the databases from off-campus, at this point you will be asked to log into the campus network with your user name and password, the same ones you use to access your campus e-mail account.

For more precise searching, go directly into a database by clicking on its title in the list of databases. Most will have several ways that you can limit your search for more pertinent results, including limiting by date, type of publication, language, type of article, name of a specific journal, or more specific subjects.

If the database or search engine you are using does not have a limit for scholarly materials, the information below will help you in determining the differences between popular magazines and scholarly journals.

Scholarly periodicals ...

• usually have sober, serious look.
• often contain many graphs and charts but few pictures.
• ALWAYS cite their sources in either footnotes or bibliographies.
• have articles written by people in the field with which the journal is concerned.
• use language that assumes a certain level of scholarly background.

EXAMPLES are...

• American Economic Review
• JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
• The Journal of Modern History
• Modern Fiction Studies

Popular periodicals...

• come in many formats, but are usually slick and attractive in appearance.
• use lots of graphics, especially photographs.
• rarely, if ever, cite their sources
• have rather short articles written by staff members or freelance writers.
• are written in simple language and are designed to meet a minimal education.

EXAMPLES are...

• People Weekly
• Reader's Digest
• Sports Illustrated\
• Time

You will notice that your result list is made up of a combination of results that are in full text (look for one or both of these symbols ) and results that have a red "FIND IT" button. Don't worry about the distinction now. Just start scanning titles until you find one that looks interesting. Click the title to get to the citation. Below is an image of a citation with an explanation of two pieces of important information. .



The source link is also important as it will tell you the details of the article, including what journal it is from and how long the article is (note the 8p indicating 8 pages). Make sure the articles you select are all over 5 pages long.

International Journal for Sustainable Development & World Ecology; Jun2005, Vol. 12 Issue 2, p141-148, 8p, 1 chart

Note that there is no full text to the article, but we could select the icon to see what our options are.

Select 6 citations from your lists that look interesting. Make sure that one is in full text (remember to be looking for one or both of the following symbols):

Cut and past the citations into a word document. You now have a 6 item bibliography. Now, skim one of the full text articles from your list. In a paragraph describe why or why not you feel this article would be useful for somebody researching the topic. This is called an annotation. List this item 1st in the 6 item bibliography. For more information on annotations connect to http://www.uwgb.edu/Library/guides/AnnotatedBibliography.asp

To see a finished bibliography with one item annotated click Below. You can use this as a model as you finish your assignment.

5 Item Bibliography with One Annotation

 

rev. 25 Jan 2011