Quaratiello_CH4.docx

Finding Periodical Articles IN THE PAST, AN INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE WAS PROBABLY ALL you needed to find acceptable articles from magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals for your research. Skimming the surface web, you could probably get by with a free article from Time magazine or the Washingto...

Finding Periodical Articles IN THE PAST, AN INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE WAS PROBABLY ALL you needed to find acceptable articles from magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals for your research. Skimming the surface web, you could probably get by with a free article from Time magazine or the Washington Post. A newspaper website might have provided a sample article without requiring payment. Meanwhile, your search results probably included, as all internet search engine results do, a lot of unvetted material that would never have appeared in a periodical or book. This information that you found was all good enough at the time, but now you should crank your research methods up a notch and dive into the deep web—those sites that lie below the public sphere of the internet that you have always relied upon. Your library website provides access to these deep web resources that will help you with your research. Among the resources your library subscribes to are a variety of periodical databases that can be searched to locate articles from magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. These databases provide records for the contents of publications spanning decades. In addition to helping you to determine which periodical issues will contain articles on your topic, these resources provide the complete text for the vast majority of these articles. TYPES OF PERIODICALS Periodicals are published on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) and come in many varieties: scholarly journals, trade journals, general magazines, newspapers, and more. They provide articles that differ from books primarily in their length but also in their perspective because, in the information cycle explained in chapter 2, articles start to appear well before any books are published on a particular subject. Before proceeding further, you need to understand the differences between types of periodicals because this will determine which databases you search. Although articles from popular magazines found on the surface web using internet search engines were probably acceptable references for most, if not all, of your previous research papers, you will likely be required now to use more academic material in your research. Although you may still find valuable information in popular magazines, scholarly sources will add a level of depth to your research that will eventually result in better papers. The terms journal and magazine are often used synonymously, but this can be misleading. You also shouldn’t assume a journal is a scholarly journal just because the word journal is in the title of the publication. Ladies’ Home Jour- nal, for example, is really not appropriate for academic research. Scholarly or academic journals are periodicals containing articles written by experts in particular fields of study, frequently individuals affiliated with academic institutions. Because their primary audience consists of their colleagues rather than students, you may find some of these articles difficult to understand. Scholarly journals tend to be specialized in their subject focus, research-ori- ented, and are more likely to be primary sources of information. Primary sources are those in which scholars report the findings of their own research (as opposed to secondary sources, which report on someone else’s activities). Academic journal articles usually have bibliographies at the end citing all the sources referred to by the author. These bibliographies can be helpful, lead- ing to a variety of additional sources that may aid in your research. Another characteristic of academic journal articles is that they are often peer-reviewed, which enhances their authority as informational sources. Before an article is accepted, it must be deemed worthy of publication by an anonymous group of the author’s colleagues. If an article is peer-reviewed, you shouldn’t be too concerned about the question Who? when evaluating the source. Magazine articles can certainly be useful in your research, but you should no longer rely on these articles that are written for a more general audience. There are certainly capable staff writers and freelance journalists who write for magazines, and their articles are usually edited and fact-checked before publication. Magazine publishers, however, are ultimately profit-driven and want their publications to make money, so this influences what sorts of articles they provide. They want a broad audience of consumers to read their magazines and, perhaps more importantly, view the many ads placed by companies that provide most of their revenue, so articles tend to be both entertaining and informative. To illustrate the difference between journal and magazine articles, consider the following list of titles: “Representation of Defense Organizations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe” “‘Spidey Can’: Preliminary Evidence Showing Arachnophobia Symptom Reduction Due to Superhero Movie Exposure” “Cinematic Destiny: Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial Convergence” In contrast, take a look at these titles: “Secrets of the Marvel Universe” “Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Ranked from Worst to Best” “Tony Stark: Sexiest Man Alive” Which list contains titles from scholarly journals, the first or the second? Which contains articles from popular magazines? Although the difference in content reflected in these titles should be obvious, the first list being from scholarly periodicals while the second is from popular magazines, the physical difference (at least for those periodicals still published in print) is also apparent. Magazines tend to be glossy publications with eye-catching covers, while journals are not. Magazines are general-interest publications that you would find on display at checkout counters and bookstores. Table summarizes the general differences between scholarly journals and popular magazines. This comparison of academic journals and popular magazines is some- what simplistic, giving the impression that the differences between these two types of informational resources is black-and-white. There is, however, a broad gray area in the form of magazines that are geared toward a more educated audience. For example, you cannot put Entertainment Weekly and Smithsonian, both considered magazines, in the same category. There are also journals that are intended for a wider audience rather than just experts with PhDs. Keep this middle ground in mind when evaluating periodical sources. Trade journals are another category of periodical and should not be con- fused with academic journals. These publications are useful if you have a business-related topic. Trade journals, such as Advertising Age and Beverage World, are periodicals written for people working in a specific occupation or industry. Newspapers, which report and comment upon current events, are generally published on a daily basis, so they are also considered periodicals. As men- tioned in the explanation of the information cycle in chapter 2, newspaper stories tend to appear after broadcast news but before magazine articles are published. With the advent of the internet, however, some newspaper outlets can publish the news much more quickly, often the same day an event happens. CHOOSING WHICH PERIODICAL DATABASE TO USE Library Databases Picture the typical suburban shopping mall. There are usually a few anchor stores, which are the large department stores; the bulk of the mall consists of specialty shops that sell particular types of products: candles, sneakers, kitchen gadgets, jewelry, and so on. Your library’s collection of periodical databases can be compared to a shopping mall. There are usually multiple general databases that are similar to the anchor stores because they provide access to a wide variety of periodicals on many topics. But then there are numerous specialized databases that focus on particular topics and provide access to articles on these topics. Just as you might see the same items in multiple stores, you may see the same articles on multiple databases. Although each database covers a unique variety of periodicals, there is certainly overlap among them. See appendix B for a listing of the databases that you are most likely to find at your library. Just as you can’t always get everything you need in the mall’s anchor stores, you don’t use one general periodical database for every research topic. Although a general database like EBSCO’s Academic Search or Gale Academic OneFile will probably serve your research purposes well enough in intro- ductory classes, you may want to take a look at more specialized databases. For example, if you are writing a paper about the future of space tourism, you might want to take a look at EBSCO’s Business Source or Business: Gale OneFile, which will provide access to the specialized business sources and trade journals, some of which the more general databases don’t cover. Librarians can certainly help you navigate the library website so that you can find the periodical databases. Although some libraries provide their list of databases right on their home page, you may need to click a link to bring up the list of available resources. This link has no standard name; it could be called many things, including any of the following: Find Articles, Databases, Electronic Databases, Research Tools, or simply Resources. This list of data- bases is usually arranged alphabetically but can often be sorted by subject to aid in your selection. Even an average-sized academic library might have hundreds of databases, so limit your selection to a subject area unless you are looking for a specific database. Consider the following when deciding which periodical databases to search: What is the subject focus of the database? Obviously, you should choose those databases that pertain to the subject area for your topic. What type of material does it include? Does it cover scholarly journals, trade journals, general magazines, newspapers, or a mixture? Does it provide the full text of articles? Some databases are just indexes, which means that they provide only records about the articles but not the articles themselves. Other databases may not provide the full text for every single record. What years are covered? Be aware of what general time period is included in the database. Bear in mind, for example, that you wouldn’t want to limit your search to a periodical database that includes only citations for our current century when your topic relates to an event that occurred in another century, like the mass shooting at Columbine High School, which happened in 1999. Your decision to use or not use a particular database will depend on your answers to these questions. Free Internet Databases Some periodical databases are available for free on the internet. Because anyone can use them, I will describe them here instead of in appendix B. Your library’s list of databases may provide links to these resources as well as links to its subscription databases. If not, you can access them directly on the internet. A major concern about these tools is that they don’t have all the features of library databases. They also may have lots of advertising. In addition, some charge fees, so if a fee is required, you’re better off using your own library’s resources. A few sites are worthy of mention, however, including the following: Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) is a search engine powered by Google technology that can help you find articles from academic jour- nals, but you may have to pay to view the entire text; because it is not clear how Google Scholar goes about selecting material to include, it should definitely not be your first stop for finding periodicals. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ; doaj.org) provides free access to more than 17,000 scholarly and scientific peer-reviewed journals. PubMed (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine, includes more than 19 million citations from biomedical and life science jour- nals; links to the complete text of these articles or to the publisher’s website (which might charge a fee) are provided. ERIC (eric.ed.gov)—Education Resources Information Center, spon- sored by the US Department of Education, provides records for journal articles as well as books, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, and other education-related materials; these records often include the full text. PERIODICAL DATABASE RECORDS If you wanted to find articles about the banning of plastic straws, you could search for this topic in Academic Search, a database that covers a wide variety of magazines and journals on a broad range of subjects. This database, pub- lished by EBSCO, comes in a variety of editions—Complete, Elite, Premier, and Ultimate—depending on the number of periodicals covered. Some of the results for this search for plastic straw bans are shown in figure 4.1. These citations from the list of results provide enough information for you to decide if you should click on the title and access the full record. The title will give you some idea of the article’s relevance to your needs. The period- ical name, as well as the icon that indicates whether the source is from an academic journal or popular magazine, may provide some indication of the article’s usefulness to you. You are also given the date and the page length, two important pieces of information for preliminary evaluation. The first title appearing in figure 4.1, “Water, Water Everywhere, but Not a Straw to Drink,” is a twenty-nine-page article from a law review journal published in 2019, so it is a lengthy and recent legal source. In contrast, “The Plastic Straw Ban Sucks” is a one-page article from a popular newsmagazine that appeared more than a year before the other article. Both of these sources may be useful in your research, but you can determine this only by consid- ering the initial citations and then, based on your evaluation, proceeding to the next level, which is the full record. The full record for “Water, Water Everywhere, but Not a Straw to Drink” is shown as figure 3.1 in chapter 3. This full record provides an abstract of the article, which summarizes its main points and will further aid you in your evaluation and your decision to read the entire article or not. Another important piece of information often given is the author’s affiliation, which will help you to establish the authority of the article. The author of this article is a law student rather than a lawyer, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the article is inferior, but it is something to consider in the evaluation process. You may have recognized the name of the author, Ben Shapiro, who wrote the second article in figure 4.1. Shapiro is a well-known political commentator, so his article, despite its brevity, may be useful. SEARCHING PERIODICAL DATABASES Subject versus Keyword Searching There are no universally standardized subject headings used to classify articles the way there are for books, which are categorized using an official list called Library of Congress Subject Headings. Each database has its own standard terminology. The subject headings assigned by EBSCO in Academic Search Complete for the article in figure 4.1 include Plastics industries—law and legislation Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Drinking straws Discrimination in public accommodations—law and legislation The same article in Gale Academic OneFile also uses the subject headings “Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990” and “Drinking straws,” but instead of “Discrimination in public accommodations—law and legislation,” it uses “Public accommodations discriminations.” It has the added heading “Hand- icapped discrimination” and doesn’t even include “Plastic industries—law and legislation.” Determining the appropriate subject headings is the best way to get a comprehensive listing of very relevant articles. Keyword searching poses the problems of finding irrelevant material or not finding all the relevant material. To help you find the best subject headings, many databases pro- vide a thesaurus-like list that suggests synonymous terms for your subject. For example, if you look up elderly or senior citizens by clicking on the link to EBSCO’s Subject Terms list, which appears at the top of the screen, you will be instructed to use older people instead, because this is the official heading. Another way to find appropriate subject headings is similar to something you can also do in an online catalog to find related books. If you find just one relevant article through keyword searching, you can take a look at the subject headings given to the article and backtrack, clicking on an appropriate heading. Broadening Your Search If you don’t find many articles initially and need more information, you can broaden your search in some databases by searching the complete text of available articles. Figure 4.2 displays the Academic Search “Search Options” form, which includes the option to “Also search within the full text of the articles.” The default in Academic Search and most other periodical databases is to limit a search to the brief summary of the article and the citation, which provides only basic information like the title, author, and journal name. Be forewarned, however, that full-text searching increases your chances of finding irrelevant material. For example, you may want articles about the dwarf planet Pluto, but searching the full text will likely also retrieve some articles about Mickey Mouse’s dog. In the upper left corner of the Academic Search “Search Options” form, you can also click the button that specifies “Find any of my search terms,” which basically performs a Boolean search using OR, which, as explained in the previous chapter, creates a larger set of results. Of course, you can also broaden your search by entering fewer search terms. If you enter too many keywords, you may end up finding nothing because you are being too specific and there may be no articles that include all of your search terms. The solution, therefore, is to be less specific. Narrowing Your Search You may have the opposite problem: finding too many articles. If this is the case, you need to narrow your search. The easiest way to do this is by adding additional keywords. You can also use advanced search features common to many databases: limiters, proximity operators, and field-specific searching. Limiters You can limit your search in very specific ways if you have found too much. Academic Search provides numerous ways to limit your search. These options, which have equivalents in most other databases, can be seen in figure 4.2: Find all my search terms—Selecting this choice basically performs a Boolean search using AND which, as explained in the previous chapter, creates a smaller set of results. Full Text—Checking this box retrieves only records that also provide the article itself. Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals—Checking this box retrieves only those articles that appear in refereed academic journals. Publication Date—Using these pull-down menus limits your search to a certain date or date range. Document Type—Using this pull-down menu lets you specify whether you want articles, book chapters, interviews, editorials, and so on. References Available—Checking this box retrieves only articles that provide bibliographies. Publication—Entering a specific title limits your search to one specific periodical Publication Type—Using this pull-down menu allows you to specify whether you want newspapers, journals, magazines, and so on. Number Of Pages—Using this pull-down menu limits your results to articles that are greater than, less than, or equal to the number of pages that you specify. Proximity Operators In addition to Boolean connectors, you may also be able to use proximity operators in some databases. Proximity operators allow you to narrow your search by specifying that two or more words must appear within a certain number of words of each other. Proximity operators are usually composed of the letter N (near) or W (within) followed by a number to specify how many other words can separate your search terms. You place the proximity operator between the words that are to be searched. For example, television N5 violence will find television violence as well as violence in movies and television because the N proximity operator disregards the order in which you put the specified words. The proximity operator W, however, finds the words only in the order you entered them—so television W3 violence would find television and film violence but not violence on television. Field-Specific Searching Generally, when you do a basic keyword search, the entirety of all the records including the abstract is searched automatically, even though the chances of retrieving irrelevant articles are increased if the abstracts are searched. Limiting your search to certain fields, as discussed in the previous chapter, can be very effective in focusing your search and reducing the number of irrelevant articles you find. Take a look again at figure 3.7 in chapter 3, which displays a form that includes several pull-down menus. The pull-down menus on the right let you choose which fields to search. You can choose nothing, which will default to searching all fields (including the abstract) for your term, or TI Title, which searches only the article titles, narrowing your search substantially. Other fields that narrow your search include SU Subject Terms, AB Abstract, and SO Journal Name. Be aware that if you select the field TX All Text, how- ever, you will broaden rather than narrow your search, because records will be retrieved that contain your terms anywhere in the article (records that mention Mickey Mouse’s dog will appear again along with those that men- tion the astronomical body Pluto). Because you can add rows to the search screen, you can combine as many field-specific searches as necessary in this database to focus like a laser on your subject. The more boxes you fill in on this form, the narrower your search will be. ACCESSING THE FULL TEXT Once you have found a pertinent record, the actual article is usually just a click away in either PDF or HTML format. Look again at figure 4.1, for example, and you will notice links that say “PDF Full Text” for the first article and “HTML Full Text” for the second one. While a PDF file is an exact replica of the article as it appeared in the print version, complete with pictures, an HTML file provides only the text without illustrations. Some databases include records for articles without the full text. When this happens, the database is functioning like an old-fashioned index, describing the source but requiring you to get the actual article elsewhere. Although it might seem like an unnecessary chore to track down such articles, your effort could be greatly rewarded when you find the perfect article to use in writing your paper. Instead of PDF or HTML links below a citation, you may see another type of link. It is called “WebBridge” on many library websites, but it may have another name, perhaps something as simple as “linked text.” By clicking on such a link, you will exit the database you are in and be taken to another database that will provide the article. Not all library websites have such a nifty feature, so if the article you want is not so easily accessible, you have to do a little extra work. See if there is a list on your library website of all the periodicals that your library has access to. Most library websites have such lists that enable you to look up a journal or magazine title and, if it is listed, be provided with links to the databases that do provide the full text for that publication. Another way to obtain the full text of an article if you know what journal issue it is in is to search for the journal title in your library’s online catalog. This will tell you if your library subscribes to the individual publication either in electronic or print format. Although the vast majority of articles should be available in electronic format these days, you might occasionally have to get a hard copy because that’s all that will be available in your particular situation. In extremely rare situations nowadays, you might even have to resort to the antiquated tech- nology of microfilm. While some periodicals are available online from their very first issues, others are not. And while you can access the most recent issues of many publications online, some publishers do not provide the cur- rent issues in order to promote sales of the printed publication. Although the hard copies of very old magazines and newspapers are usually stored on microfilm, very old issues of scholarly journals are often in book form, with a year’s worth of issues bound into a single volume. You’ll probably find enough articles in electronic format for most of your assignments, but as your research needs become more specialized as you progress with your education, you may have to track down hard copies. Finally, if you can’t get the article through your library, you can utilize the services of your interlibrary loan department, which allows you to order the article from another library. Even if the article you need is in an obscure scholarly journal held by only a handful of libraries in the country, your library’s ILL department can request this article and usually get it to you in about a week, or sooner if the article can be e-mailed or faxed. Although you probably will not be availing yourself of this valuable service any time soon, your future studies may depend on getting one seemingly unobtainable source. Finding articles will be an essential part of your research, particularly ones from scholarly journals if you are expected to delve more deeply into periodical sources than you ever had to do in high school. For some narrow or very recent topics, articles may provide you with the only information you will be able to find. The periodical databases provided on your library’s website will enable you to do this.