DISCERNING ACADEMIC JOURNALS (also called “scholarly,” “refereed,” or “peer-reviewed”)
Taken from: “How Do I….Distinguish Scholarly Journals” -- reached from the library’s home page under
“Getting Help,” then “How Do I….”
- Audience is made up of scholars, researchers, students of the field
- Articles are written by specialists in the field, usually scholars with Ph.D.s
- Appearance is serious and sober, with few colors and few or no advertisements
- Coverage is original research results and scholarship
- Articles are signed and often include author(s)’ credentials
- Are written in technical and scholarly language
- May be reviewed or "refereed" before publication by an editorial board or outside scholars
- Articles are usually lengthy, often ten pages or more
- Often published by professional associations, like the National Communication Association
- Frequency is usually quarterly or semi-annual
- References are properly cited, and usually includes a bibliography and/or footnotes
- Examples are Communication Research Report; Journal of Communication; Health Communication
USING BOOLEAN OPERATORS (AND, OR) IN YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY
Ex. television AND children AND violence
Cell phone* AND (teenager* OR adolescent*) -- the *asterisk truncates, for ‘phone’ and ‘phones, etc.’
USING DATABASES TO SEARCH FOR ARTICLES ON YOUR TOPIC
From the library’s home page click the DATABASES tab, then navigate alphabetically to the database of your choice.
IF YOU ARE OFF-CAMPUS YOU WILL BE ASKED FOR YOUR PIRATE ID AND PASSWORD UPON ENTERING A DATABASE.
Here are some suggested databases to use for COMM 2030 assignments:
Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC):
Formerly produced partially by the National Communication Association (NCA) and Pennsylvania State University.
Contains many peer-reviewed articles.
Communication Abstracts: Indexes and abstracts (summarizes) communication-related articles, reports and books.
Coverage includes not only communication literature but also literature in other disciplines that is relevant to communication researchers.
ProQuest Research Library: contains over 2,600 periodicals in a wide range of subject areas. Searches can be restricted to peer-reviewed journals.
Academic Search Premier: Provides information on a wide range of academic areas including business, computer science, engineering, social sciences, humanities, linguistics, science, education and multicultural topics. It features full text for more than 4,500 journals, and indexes about 8,000 journals including nearly 7,000 peer-reviewed.
If It’s Not Available Fulltext onscreen:
- First, try the SFX Find It button to locate an electronic copy or to search the Joyner Library Catalog for a print copy. DE students living OUTSIDE of Pitt County can have copies made from print journals and mailed to them. See: Joyner Library Services for Our Distance Learning Community
- If there is no SFX Find It button available, try the E-Journal Locator to look for an electronic copy of the journal.
- If the library does not have access to an electronic copy of the journal, search the Joyner Library Catalog using a Journal Title Keyword search to identify a print copy.
CITING YOUR SOURCES
Joyner Ref. Desk BF76.7 .P83 2001
NEED MORE HELP?
- The staff at the Reference Desk are available Mon.-Thurs. 8:00 am – 10:00 pm,
Friday 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, Saturday 10:00 am – 7:00 pm, Sunday 1:00 pm – 10:00 pm.
- E-mail and Instant Messaging is available via “Ask-A-Librarian” – from the library’s home page under “Help & Instruction”
- Telephone 328-6677 during regular Reference Hours
