What is a Journal?
A journal is a collection of articles, written by different people. A journal will focus on a topic or subject and the articles published within it all relate to that topic. They are published at regular intervals and can be a key source of research and academic information.
There are several different types of journal that you can access:
What is an article?
Journals are made up of articles, these are individual pieces of research written by an academic, professional or expert on a particular subject or topic. They are published together with other articles by other authors in a journal. However, they don’t go into as much detail as books.
To access journals, you will need to understand a journal reference. They will generally include these details in this order (most journals will have a volume and issue number but some may not):
Authors | Year Published | Article title | Journal title | Volume | Issue | Pages | |
WILSON, R.T. and B.D. TILL, | 2008. |
|
Journal of advertising, | 37 | (1), | 59-72 |
When included in a reference list, this journal article reference will look like this:
WILSON, R.T. and B.D. TILL, 2008. Airport advertising effectiveness: an exploratory field study. Journal of advertising, 37(1), 59-72
Find an entire journal and access it by searching for it in the Library Catalogue (you will only be able to access titles to which the Library subscribes).
You can search for articles on your topic, regardless of which journal they are in, by using the 'Articles' search option on the Catalogue to do this at a basic level. Or for more flexible and in-depth searching, use the eResources relevant to your subject (listed in the Articles & eResources menu on the left).
You could also try searching Google Scholar for wider literature, including articles. Some will link you to the full text but not all will.
Enter your search terms
Refine your results using the Peer-reviewed Journals option (this then lists articles from the most scholarly journals)
Use View online to see where you can access the article
Check the access instructions and then GO!
The Articles tab is very general and you may get a lot of results which are not relevant.
The Library pays for you to have access to these key resources and you will improve your marks if you read and reference appropriate library materials in your work!
Google Scholar is a search engine that allows you to search for more academic content on the web. You can use it to track down journal articles, book details and more. You can set it up to show you which results you can access via a Solent University library subscription.
Link to full text content from Solent University Library
This will tell you if the Library has a copy of the article for you to read or not. To set this up on your device:
OFF CAMPUS: You must check the access information for each article via the Is It @ Solent screens and login to view.
Send reference details to RefWorks
Set up a link to 'Import into RefWorks' for each result in your list. To set this up, go into the menu, select Settings and in the 'Bibliography Manager' section, select RefWorks and save.
Guided Learning Activity