Personal Research Guide

1. I cannot find a journal for my discipline

· Try a Google search for professional association [name of discipline]. For example: professional association marketing. Look for a Publications or Research link to find journals published by that association.

· Search the library's  Summon  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  discovery system for a topic, and look at the citation of an article that might interest you. Find the name of the journal the article is published in. Find the journal using the  ejournals  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. search on the library homepage.

· Search the  ejourna (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.l list directly. Use a very broad term like marketing and make sure the Title Contains All Words is selected as the search type.

· Use a library  Research Guide  for the discipline to find a journal or database recommendation from a librarian.

2. I cannot find enough on my topic.

· Try synonyms or broader terms (ex., "Climate change" for "global warming").

· Check your search terms and generate some other keywords to use. Write these down.

· When you find a source that you really like, make note of the keywords or subject terms (sometimes called descriptors) that are used.

· Be sure that you are using 3-4 keywords, not a long string of words to search.

3. How do I find scholarly articles?

· Be sure you are using a library database. Use a  Research Guide  to recommend what database you should use for your topic.

· Know the difference between a scholarly article and popular magazines, and trade or practitioner journals. If you do not, look at the section titled Discourse Communities: Written Genres for information.

· Use a database limit feature that selects "peer-reviewed" or "scholarly" articles.