Finding Journal
& Newspaper ArticlesWhy,
When and How to Use Databases
Why?
Use our online
databases to find journal and newspaper articles.
When?
Get articles when you need focused and detailed
information.
How?
Each database has different features. For help
in searching Sarah Lawrence
databases, choose a topic: Need
more information? See the reference librarians at the main library or
email
us your question.
What
does our catalog have that our databases don't?The
Sarah Lawrence College catalog contains records for each one of the items
that we own.
It tells you where each item is located, what it is about, and
if it is checked out. It does NOT
tell you what is in each item. Use the catalog
to find: - Books
that we own
- Titles
of journals that we subscribe to
- Newspapers
that we subscribe to
Our
databases, in contrast, tell you what is in a range of sources, like journals
and newspapers.
When you search a database, you find out what articles are
in the journals and newspapers, but
not if we own them. Use our databases
to find: - Chapters
in books we may have
- Articles
in journals that we may or may not subscribe to
- Newspaper
articles that we may have in the collection
When
you find the information for an article that you want, go to our catalog to see
if we
have the item. See our section on finding the article
for how to do this. Back
to topics How
do I know when I need an article?Every
project is different, but generally you will want articles when:
- You
have already done general reading on your topic area (in textbooks or reference
books) - You
have developed a focused thesis
- You
decide that your project will require in-depth information such as critiques of
pieces or performances, research reports, case studies, or discussions of specific
aspects of theories Back
to topics When
do I NOT want articles? Articles
are not always the source of information you want. Don't use articles for:
- An
overview of a topic; instead use books in the reference collection or textbooks
- A
picture of someone or something; try reference books, Google's
Image Search
- A
biography of an individual; search the catalog
under subject for the person's name
Back
to topics When
do I want scholarly material and when popular?Your
project determines what type of material is the most appropriate. Many of our
databases
contain both scholarly and popular information. For many projects,
scholarly material is the most
appropriate because you want fully supported,
focused research. Scholarly material is generally
written for a specialist
audience, will contain all citations to the author's sources, and will provide
all supporting data. Some
projects, however, may require popular information. Examples of popular
literature are
glossy magazines (Time, Vogue, Newsweek) and newspapers. They
may have articles that are
fully researched, but often do not cite their sources
or present the original data. You might use
popular sources to find out about
recent controversies, opinions on events, or, for a historical
paper, contemporary
reaction to an event. The
databases at Sarah Lawrence can help you discriminate between scholarly and popular
sources. Look for an option to search peer reviewed sources only in the
database. This will
make the database search only scholarly material.
Back
to topics How
do I pick a database? Each
database specializes either in a subject area or a type of information. See our
subject guide
to
Sarah Lawrence Databases for your topic. In general, pick the database that is
most specific
to your topic. Back
to topics When
do I want a full-text database?Sarah
Lawrence also has general databases that cover a range of topics. They are of
two kinds:
citation and full-text. Citation databases have records
that give a reference to an article; you
then have to find the article in
our collection. See our guide to finding journals. Citation
databases,
generally, are more specific to your field. Fulltext
databases, in contrast, contain the text of the articles themselves. Our
fulltext databases
tend to cover a wider range of topics in less depth. See
our full-text
link for those databases that
are full-text. Back
to topics How
do I search a database?Each
database is different. See the individual help screens in each database and look
for the 
symbol in our
lists of databases. We
also offer database consultations
for in-depth searching on a
topic. Sign up for one today! Back
to topics How
do I find the article itself now that I have the citation?Here
is the process for finding the journal or newspaper at the Sarah Lawrence Libraries:
- Find
the name of the journal the article is in; often, databases will call this the
source or publication - Open
the Sarah
Lawrence College Library catalog
- Run
a Journal Title (exact) search for the name of the journal, NOT the title
of the
article - Find
the link to the journal in the results list, click to see the record for the journal
and read it carefully to make sure we have the dates that you need - Write
down the call number and find it on the shelves
- If
the journal is not listed in the catalog, check our list
of online journals
- If
you get no hits, submit an interlibrary
loan request
Back
to topics Send
comments to the library webmaster
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