• Your choices: An electronic article index database or a print index.

• Finding current articles: Use an electronic periodical index, such as Academic Search Premier, Lexis Nexis Academic , or Historical Abstracts. (These, and other resources can be found on the Library's home page under the Alphabetical List of Databases. These databases contain a variety of full text articles, citations, abstracts. 

• Finding older articles: Some print indexes that cover distant years are available, ask a reference librarian to locate information that pre-dates the electronic abstract and indexes. Hint: Be sure to check the Bound Periodicals Room (just West of the Current Periodicals room) for the back issues.

• The World Wide Web contains may organizational and education institution sites. In a pinch, try using a Google.com to search for corporate/business home pages.

Evaluating Journals

Popular Magazines vs Trade Publications vs Scholarly Journals

The following are a list of criteria that can be used to distinguish between popular magazines, trade publications, and scholarly journals. Some periodicals will not meet all of the criteria in a category. For example, Scientific American, which has glossy pages and color pictures, contains both scholarly articles as well as some that are geared to a more general audience. In those cases where an entire periodical cannot be put into one category, you must evaluate the article itself to determine if it is scholarly or not.

 

CRITERIA	POPULAR MAGAZINES	TRADE PUBLICATIONS	SCHOLARLY JOURNALS
Appearance	eye-catching glossy paper color graphics each issue starts with pg. 1	cover depicts industrial setting glossy paper color graphics each issue starts with a pg. 1	plain cover black/white graphics each issue continues pagination from previous issue
Audience	nonprofessionals	members of a specific business, industry, or organization	researchers and professionals
Content	personalities, news, and general interest articles articles written by staff or may be unsigned	industry trends, new product announcements, new techniques, and organizational news articles written by staff or contributing authors	research projects, theory, and methodology articles written by contributing authors
Accountability	editorial review no bibliographies	editorial review may have short bibliographies	peer reviewed/refereed*
Advertisement	heavy	moderate all or most are trade related	few or none
Examples	Gourmet Psychology Today Time	Broadcasting & Cable Business Week Advertising Age	Economic History Review Journal of Psychology Shakespeare Quarterly

* Peer Reviewed/Refereed

Peer Review refers to the policy of having experts in the field examine journal articles before acceptance for publication. Peer review insures that the research described in a journal's articles is sound and of high quality.

Sometimes the term Refereed is used instead of peer review. Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, located behind the Reference Desk, now has a list of refereed journals. However, not all scholarly journals are on this list. For unlisted journals, examine the editorial policy, instructions to authors, and/or the editorial board list of members to determine if the editorial boards and/or consultants are experts in the field.

Finding Valid Information

To evaluate an article look at:

• Why was the article written?
  • to persuade the reader to do something
    • vote a certain way
    • purchase an item
    • attend an event
  • to inform the reader
    • results of a study
    • what happened at an event
    • explanation of an experiment
  • to prove something
    • is right/wrong
    • a behavior is bad/good
    • a method works/doesn't work

• For college level term papers, you must evaluate the periodical to determine its validity
  • popular magazines
    • examples: Time, Newsweek
    • should be used sparingly, or not at all
  • trade magazines
    • examples: Broadcasting & Cable, Advertising Age
    • may be useful for topics or statistical data, but can be biased
  • scholarly journal
    • examples: Journal of Psychology, Shakespeare Quarterly
    • contain articles describing high quality research that has been reviewed by experts in the field prior to publication

• Critically look at the article and ask these questions
  • Is the material organized and focused?
  • Is the argument or presentation understandable?
  • Is this original research, or a review of previous research?
  • Is the material simply an informative piece?

• Some publications have an inherent bias that will impact articles printed in them. Is the publication:
  • left/liberal
  • right/conservative
  • neutral
  • an alternative press
  • published by a political action (PAC) group
  
  
• The reference source "Magazines for Libraries" (Z 6941 .M23 - REFERENCE DESK) identifies ideological slants for over 300 periodicals (selected from 165,000 possibilities). Although the percentage of periodicals seems small, the book is useful because it describes journals that are likely to be in libraries.

• Some topics, such as those in the health and medical sciences, require current information. Other subjects, such as geology, value older material as well as current. Know the time needs of your topic and determine what you need for your research.