Second Language Acquisition -- HumStud 319

Finding Articles

Using Databases to locate research articles and scholarly information.

A database is the best place to start your research. You will find citations to journal, magazine, and newspaper articles in the library databases, frequently, you will find the full text of the article right in the database.

When searching in databases you will quickly find out that not everything is in full text. If you find just a citation (no electronic full text) click on the title of the article, and then the FIND IT button to determine if the article is in full text in another database, in our print journal collection on the fourth floor, or available for FREE through InterLibrary loan. If you have questions don't hesitate to contact the reference desk.

If off campus you will need to enter your username and password (the same information you use to log on to the campus network).

• Education Full Text
  Description : Provides indexing and abstracting of 400 international periodicals, monographs, and yearbooks. Topics include a wide range of contemporary education issues, including government funding, instructional media, multicultural education, religious education, student counseling, competency-based, and information technology.
  Coverage: 1983 -
  

• ERIC
  Description : Contains citation and abstract information from over 750 educational journals and related documents from the Educational Resource Information Center.
  Coverage: 1967 -
  
  
• PsycINFO
  Description : PsycINFO (R) contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations, all in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law.
  Coverage: 1872 -
  
  Academic Search Complete from EbscoHost
  Complete contains indexing and abstracts for more than 8,200 journals, with full text for more than 4,500 of those titles. PDF back files to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for nearly 1,000 titles. Academic Search Complete from EbscoHost contains unmatched full text coverage in biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion & theology, etc.
  

• Sociological Abstracts via CSA
  Description: The Sociological Abstracts database is a primary resource for accessing the latest research sponsored in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database draws information from an international selection of over 2,600 journals and other serials publications, plus conference papers, books, and dissertations. Social Planning/Policy & Development Abstracts (SOPODA) is also included as part of this database, providing additional literature on policy issues addressing violence, abuse, neglect, aging, health, energy, environment, housing, education, women and development, disaster preparedness and risk assessment.
  Coverage: 1963-
  

• JSTOR
  Description : JSTOR database is unique because the complete back files of core scholarly journals have been digitized, starting with the very first issues, many of which reach back to the 1800s. The database now contains over 2 million pages and new titles and fields are being added constantly (approximately 100,000 pages are added to the database each month).
  Coverage: varies from title to title, but approximately from the 1800s to 1994.
  

• Professional Development Collection
  Description : Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly specialized collection of 520 high quality education journals, including nearly 350 peer-reviewed titles. This database also contains more than 200 educational reports.
  Coverage: current
  

Finding Books

Cofrin Library Catalog: use to search for items that this library owns.


WorldCat: use to search for and request items that are owned by libraries worldwide. Most requests are filled in 5-7 days.

Public Web Resources

Google Scholar -- Google Scholar is a service that provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. You can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, books theses, dissertations, universities, publisher's websites, and scholarly organizations.

Please note the following:

All on campus computers are configured to allow you to see if the library has an article in full text when searching Google Scholar. If you are connecting from off-campus or from home you will need to do the following:

• Go to Google Scholar preferences

• Enter "uw green bay " in the Library Links Search Box

• Check the UW-Green Bay - Find It @ UW-Green Bay option

• save preferences
  
  After you have completed a Scholar search you will notice the following links added to some result items:
  
  Find It @ UW-Green Bay - this will take you to a "SFX" window which will allow you to link to the full-text document. In some cases the full text may not be available in which case you will be allowed to submit an interlibrary loan request.
  The Cofrin Library has registered some of its holdings with Google so some full text content can be accessed directly via the Google Scholar interface. So it's now possible in some cases to search Google Scholar and link directly to the full text of journal articles when they are available through Cofrin Library Resources

  
  There are many wonderful resources available to you on the public web, below find two guides that may help in uncovering the best resources possible.

• This excellent site from Harvard University provides tips for expert searching of Google: http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/google/part2.html
• This site from Purdue University's Owl labs outlines the qualities to look for when evaluating websites: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/rguides/studentinstruction/evaluation/websiteevaluationchart.html

Research Assistance

If you have questions concerning Library resources that are not addressed in this guide, don't hesitate to contact the reference staff vial email at refdesk@uwgb.edu.