Goolge Scholar can be used to find specific scholarly articles.

Scholarly journals have articles written by researchers who are considered experts in a field.  These journals are also known as "peer-reviewed", "refereed" or "academic" journals.  Peer reviewed journals contain articles which have been reviewed and approved by recognised experts in particular subject areas.  Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is a scholarly journal.

Popular magazines have articles written by writers or journalists.  Time or Newsweek are examples of popular journals.

Review articles - Researchers often publish review papers.   Review papers or articles present a comprehensive review of the existing body of knowledge in a specific subject or topic.  Review papers can be very useful for locating the core literature in a particular subject area.  Some journal databases give the option to refine your search by 'Review Papers'.

Using the Library Catalogue: Simply type the name of the journal you want to read into the search box, e.g. Psychology and ageing. 

Search for a specific Journal Article: Choose 'Including Articles' from the drop down box beside the search box, and type in whatever information you have about the article, e.g. author name, article name, journal title. This will search across many of our electronic journals. (NOTE: this method does not search all our electronic titles nor does it search our print collection.)

All databases will provide you with citations of articles relevant to your search, i.e. author name, article title, journal title, year, volume and page numbers.  Many will also provide you with an abstract or short summary of the article, to help you ascertain how relevant it is going to be.  Some databases even provide  you with the full-text of the journal articles.

If the full-text is not immediately available you may see an SFX symbol 

SFX is a linking technology that will link you from a citation in a database to the full-text of that journal, wherever the Library has made it available (often in a different database).  Simply click on the SFX icon and choose the relevant option from the menu that appears.

Tracking down journal articles which are cited or referred to in papers which you have identified as being relevant to your research is a useful way of locating articles related to your research.  Once you have identified relevant papers in a search, many databases give you the option to link to or find ‘Citing Papers’, those that cite the paper you have found, which are also likely to be relevant. 

If you would like to learn more about searching databases and finding journal articles have a look at our list of upcoming training events to see if there is one that suits your needs.