Finding Journal Articles

Table of Contents

Finding Journal Article Databases for Geography
Finding Journal Articles When You Have the Citation
Finding Journal Articles When You Know the Author's Name
Finding Journal Articles about a Certain Subject

Finding Journal Article Databases for Geography

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Electronic Resources - Abstracts and Indexes page at http://irservices.library.unt.edu/
2. Under Browse Abstract and Index Titles by Subject, select Social and Information Sciences.
   
3. On the next screen, select Geography. You will get a list of 23 databases that have geography information in them. Make sure to select one that has "journals" in its description.

4. Also see the Geography Subject Guide at http://www.library.unt.edu/research-tools/subject-guides/geography. It has a list of geography-related journal databases.

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Finding Journal Articles When You Have the Citation

1. The citation for a journal article looks like this:
   Bartz R, et al. (2007). Lipidomics Reveals That Adiposomes Store Ether Lipids and Mediate Phospholipid Traffic. Journal of Lipid Research 48 (4): 837-847.
2. You need to find the journal, then the volume or year and finally the issue. Do a Journal Title search in the UNT Library Catalog at http://iii.library.unt.edu to find the journal.
3. Look at the entries for both print and electronic versions to see which has the volume/year you need.
4. For print journals, find the location of the volume. Retrieve the volume and find the issue in it, and then find the starting page number of the article.
5. For online journals, click on the volume/year you want, and then select the issue. Scroll through the issue articles until you see the one you want.
   
   

Try this: Find the journal and article in the citation below:

Eric W. Seabloom, et al. (2003). Competition, Seed Limitation, Disturbance, and Reestablishment of California Native Annual Forbs. Ecological Applications 13 (3): 575-592.

Is the journal available in print, electronic or both? Does UNT have a current subscription to the journal that goes through 2009? Were you able to open the pdf file of the article?

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Finding Journal Articles When You Know the Author's Name

1. The trick here is to figure out which database the article might be in because databases index/abstract only a finite number of journals. Try matching the author's subfield with the descriptions of the journal databases, but that can be hit and miss.
2. Or try the EBSCOhost databases at http://irservices.library.unt.edu/resource.cfm?ai_id=22

• Select multiple databases that cover the subject of geography, e.g. Academic Search Complete, Social Sciences Abstracts, SOCIndex
• Click on the Continue button at the top or bottom of the screen
• Go to the Advanced Search and do an Author search (last name first) and a Subject search, e.g. geography
  
• Limit to full-text articles
  
• Select the category Science 
• Then Search and you'll get results back from multiple databases
  
• Click on the Find Full Text link if the full text article is not available within the databases
  
  

Try this: You want an article by James Kennedy in the UNT Biological Sciences Department; his specialty is ecology. Search for his articles in the EBSCOhost databases. What is the title of one article he wrote?

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Finding Journal Articles about a Certain Subject

1. Find a journal article database that includes your subject. See Find Journal Article Databases for Geography above.
2. Enter keywords for your subject in the Basic Search, e.g. [ecology and lakes]
3. Browse through the articles to find one relevant to your topic
4. Move to the Advanced Search if you don't find what you want. It lets you search for words in specific parts of an article and combine more search terms.
5. Too many articles? Add another keyword to narrow your search using and, e.g. [ecology and Africa and lakes]
6. Too few articles? You'll have to broaden your search by adding synonymous terms using or, e.g. [ ecology and Africa and (lakes or rivers)]
   
   

Try this: Find an article about dunes in Africa in Academic Search Complete. Did you use the Basic Search or the Advanced Search? What was the search string that finally worked?

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