When you hear the word article, you may think of something written in a newspaper or magazine. When we talk about articles in university, we're usually referring to a formal piece of writing which describes new knowledge or ideas based on original research, analysis or interpretation. This type of article is similar in length to an essay or chapter in a book.
In the following citation, the article title is in bold:
Li, Y., Wang, Y., Lee, Y., Chen, H., Petri, A. N., & Cha, T. (2023). Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 48, 101311–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101311
A journal is a scholarly publication in a specific discipline that is published regularly throughout the year. It contains articles written by researchers and experts.
In the following citation, the journal title is in bold:
Li, Y., Wang, Y., Lee, Y., Chen, H., Petri, A. N., & Cha, T. (2023). Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 48, 101311–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101311
You can find out if the library subscribes to a journal in print or online, or if we have back issues, by searching for a title using the Journal Search.
Clicking anywhere in the box for this title brings you into the record where you can see more details on how to access this journal. Alternatively, clicking Online access will take you directly to the journal.
If the library has physical copies of a journal the full record will show you where in the library they can be found, under the Get It section. In the below example the library has:
Peer review is a process in which a scholar's research is critically evaluated by other experts in that subject area before being published in a journal.
The terms scholarly and academic may also be used to refer to articles that go through the peer review process.
Many databases offer the option to search for peer-reviewed journal articles; we'll show you how to do this in the database searching sections, below.
A database is a searchable electronic collection of journals which contains citations, and sometimes the full text, of articles.
The following article was found in the database ScienceDirect:
Li, Y., Wang, Y., Lee, Y., Chen, H., Petri, A. N., & Cha, T. (2023). Teaching Data Science through Storytelling: Improving Undergraduate Data Literacy. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 48, 101311–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101311
Visit the list of databases for each area of study at Ambrose.
ScienceDirect provides access to journals and articles on:
Use the "step" tabs above to learn how to find ScienceDirect on the library's website and how to search it effectively for your research topics.
Go to the library's Journal Databases by Subject page. Here you'll find sections for all the areas of study at Ambrose. Scroll to the bottom and click the Natural Sciences tab to open that section, then click the ScienceDirect link:
This is what the database will look like when you arrive.
You can begin entering your search terms in the search boxes available.
Often you will be entering keywords into the box labeled "Find articles with these terms". You can add additional information about the journal or book title, or author(s) but this is not necessary to start your search process.
This example will use the phrase "climate change". You can see that there are quotation marks ( " ) around this phrase, and this is to ensure that these words are searched in this exact order; if there weren't quotation marks around this phrase, the database would look for any appearance of these words, not necessarily in this exact order.
There is also the option to do an "Advanced search". If you click to this option from the right-hand side of the basic search, there will be many more fields available to search. These will be most helpful if you are searching for a specific item. You can enter information into as many or as few of the boxes as you would like.
This search retrieves over 300,000 results! This is far too many to browse through, so we want to find a way to focus our search to look for articles that are most relevant.
The first step will be to use the "Refine by:" section on the left hand side of the screen. If you want only original research articles from the past 2 years, check off the years you would like and Research articles from the "Article type" section. This has brought our search results down to 67,381 but this is still too many to look through!
To narrow your search from a large number of results you will need to identify some additional or more specific search terms. You can continue to refine your search through the options on the left of the screen, or you can build your search from the search box at the top. To do this you will need to use the Boolean operators AND, OR, and/or NOT.
We will add some additional search terms to our initial search of "climate change". By using AND we will narrow our search, OR can expand it: "climate change" AND "genetic diversity" AND (plants OR trees). Using parentheses around (plants OR trees) groups this part of the search together. Without the parentheses the search would be looking for:
"climate change" AND "genetic diversity" AND plants
OR
trees
Which would provide a huge number of results that would not be very relevant to our search!
Click here for more tips on how to use the Advanced Search in ScienceDirect.
Once you've found an article of interest there are multiple tools available in ScienceDirect. You can
You can also check the box to the left of any articles of interest and then download multiple article PDFs at once, or export the citations.
Clicking on the title of an article will allow you to read the article online and provide many additional tools and clickable links.
A table of contents with clickable links can be found on the left hand side along with links to figures, tables, and any other additional materials included in the article.
A short list of similar articles to the one you are viewing can be seen on the right side of the screen.
Under the title are links to add the article to Mendeley (an online referencing tool), share the article (including emailing it to yourself), or to cite the article.
If you are interested in any of the references in the article you can click on the hyperlinked text and options to find the referenced article are provided. They may be found in ScienceDirect, link to another website, or allow you to search Google Scholar, so make sure you set up Google Scholar to link to the Ambrose Library!
You can also create an account in ScienceDirect.
When you're logged in it will track your search and reading history (this can be turned off) and you can also set alerts for publications of interest.
If you've created a search that is really useful for you, you can view only new results for that search as well.
Go to the library catalogue. When you start typing your topic or search term in the search bar, a drop-down menu will appear. Select the Online Resources option to search for a variety of electronic resources on the topic:
Alternatively, use the Advanced Search area to enter multiple search terms in different fields.
This search retrieves over 20,000 results, far more than a catalogue search! On the search results page, take a look at the left-hand menu where you can see the various resource types represented. You can select these to look at only certain types of resources:
There are other filters worth exploring as well.
You may want to select Peer-reviewed Journals if your instructor has required that your sources need to be peer reviewed, or input a "from" date in Publication Date if your instructor has required that your sources need to be recent:
The Subject list can be a handy place to look for additional search terms that appear in the results; these might also be relevant to your research topic:
Be sure to check out the Databases list to see which databases these results are retrieved from; you may want to consider doing more targeted searching in one of these databases, since databases offer even more options for refining search results.
Once you've found a resource you want to view in more detail, you can click the green access links on the results page to access it:
Alternatively, click on the title and scroll down to the View Online section, as there may be multiple options for finding the full text online:
When you click on the titles of resources in the library's catalogue, you'll be brought into that item's record where there are many useful tools. Use the tabs above to learn about them!
A permalink is a stable link to an item in the library's collections. Use the permalink (rather than the URL in your browser) if you need to send a link to an item to your instructor or to a classmate.
Click the permalink button and then the copy the permalink to clipboard button:
If you're referencing an item in a research paper or assignment, you'll need to include a citation to it in your Bibliography, Works Cited, or Reference List. Depending on your program of study, your instructor may require these citations be formatted in a particular style. The citation tool is useful for generating a citation in a variety of citation styles:
Click the citation button, choose your preferred citation style from the list, and then click the copy the citation to clipboard button:
To remember a record for later, use the email tool to send yourself the record. Click the email button, enter your email address (include a note if you want to), and then click the Send button:
You'll receive an email from library@ambrose.edu with the subject Item(s) sent by Primo. If you don't see the email in your inbox, check your junk or spam folder.
You may find that pinning items is a more useful way to not just remember items for later, but also to organize resources on related topics. To pin items, click the pin icon associated with an item:
This saves an item to the My Favorites section. Click the pin icon at the top of the screen to go to your favourites:
Here you can add labels to group similar resources together in whatever way is useful for you (e.g., by topic, assignment, or course):
You can also save searches using the pinning tool, which may be particularly helpful when you've used the advanced search area and combined multiple search terms and are searching in multiple fields.
Click the Save Query button at the top of your search results to save your search. Click Turn on notification for this query to enter your email address if you'd like to be notified when new items are added to the catalogue that meet your search criteria:
Click the pin icon at the top of the screen to go to your favourites:
And click the Saved Searches tab to see your saved search. You can turn search notifications on or off here using the bell icon, or you can click the hyperlinked search to launch the search again:
See these instructions for how to request print books online.
For instructions on using EBSCOhost databases, visit the guide to Using the Library's Databases.
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus is a database of full-text articles, indexing and abstracts from essential biology and agricultural research journals. It is a valuable tool for those studying the agricultural industry, veterinary science, wildlife management and environmental science.
A comprehensive source of full text for nursing & allied health journals.
Full text journal articles and books in the fields of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts and urban planning.
A full-text database covering nursing and allied health topics, including pediatric nursing, critical care, mental health, nursing management, medical law and more.
Database from US National Library of Medicine providing full text access to articles on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, molecular biology, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences.
Full text articles, pamphlets, booklets, special reports, book excerpts focusing on varying perspectives of complementary, holistic, and integrated approaches to health care and wellness.
Scholarly, government, and general-interest resources covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Topics include global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
Health Source Consumer Edition
A collection of consumer health information on topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health.
Database providing journal articles, books, images, and primary sources for a wide variety of disciplines.
Full-text database which includes science encyclopedias, reference books, and periodicals. Topics include biology, chemistry, earth & space science, environmental science, health & medicine, history of science, life science, physics, science & society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology and wildlife.