FINDING SCHOLARLY JOURNAL ARTICLES
To locate ZSR holdings for a specific journal (or magazine or newspaper), search for the title in Find a Journal.
To search for articles on your topic, use the online databases listed below. Click on the PDF or linked full text to view the full article, or click on WFU Full Text Options to search our holdings for the article.
Remember, if we don't have a journal or article you need, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan!
Book reviews appear frequently in scholarly journals. They provide an overview of the content included in a book as well as an assessment of a book's strengths and weaknesses. These can often help a researcher decide whether a book is relevant or appropriate for their needs without reading the entire book.
To find a book review for a specific book, search for its title in the Primo Everything search or in a database such as JSTOR (lots of scholarly journals = lots of book reviews!). If you see the title of the book come up as an article, that is likely a review of the book. In JSTOR, you can even check the box next to Reviews to limit your search to just book reviews.
To identify book reviews for books on your topic, you might start with a discipline-specific database such as America: History and Life, to make sure that the books are coming from your field, rather than related fields. Many databases have a filter on the left side for reviews, or you can look for the Review icon in the database. The review will also often have the full book title, publication information, and price in the title of the article, which is an indicator that it's a review.
The databases listed here may help you find and get access to newspaper articles, magazines articles, and scholarly journal articles about your topic. But how do you get started?
1. Choose keywords that describe your topic and consider how different authors might describe the same topic. For example: railroad* AND (labor OR "working conditions") AND immigrant*
2. Use the tools provided by the database to narrow your search by date, document type, and more.
3. Read the abstract or summary of the article to decide if it is relevant to your topic.
4. If the article is relevant, make sure to save it! ZSR recommends saving it to Zotero (which will also help you cite it later in your paper!). You can also email it to yourself or copy the permalink (NOT the link in the browser bar!).
Need help? Ask a librarian!