What is a scholarly periodical?
Journals whose contents are written by specialists in the field and which are based on high quality research (may also be called "peer reviewed" or "refereed").

Who is the audience? Scholars and professionals

Who are the authors? Academics who do not make a living as writers.

What does a scholarly periodical look like? Dull, few ads and often sponsored by an academic society

What is the content of a scholarly periodical? Highly specialized; many footnotes &/or charts and graphs

What is the vocabulary used in a scholarly periodical? Learned reading level--specialized vocabulary.

Randall Library's Periodical Collection

Print Collection:
Current Periodicals--to the left, beyond the Circulation Desk, after you enter the Library
Bound Periodicals--the back-half of the library
Microfilm Periodicals--between the Reference Desk and the Bound Periodicals

On-Line Collection:
Databases for PED:
Interdisciplinary -- EbscoHost, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink
Specialized-- CINAHL, PsycInfo, SportDiscus, Medline, ERIC, GeoRef

Accessing On-Line databases for citations to articles and for full-text articles

From the Library's Home Page (library.uncw.edu), select "Databases & Articles". Databases are listed in alphabetical order.

Search Statements

Consists of a) keywords and b) operators
Select keywords that are important to the topic. For instance, you want information on head injuries that result from skiing accidents. The keywords you could choose are "head," "injuries," and "skiing."

Operators, are the words you use in between your keywords.

AND=retrieves records containing BOTH words. For instance, the search statement, "head and injury and skiing, retrieves records that contain all three words.

OR=retrieves records containing EITHER word. For instance, the search statement, "injury or injuries," retrieves records containing either "injury" or "injuries." The records do not have to contain both words.

If you leave an operator out of the statement, most databases search for the words as a phrase. For instance, if you searched for "head injury," most databases retrieve records that contain both words "head" and "injury," and the two words appear beside each other.

Sample Search Statements:
head and injury and skiing
head and (injury or injuries) and skiing
head injury and skiing

Specialized Databases (these databases can be found in the Databases & Articles link http://library.uncw.edu/web/research/databases/index.html on the Randall Library home page)

If these databases do not provide the full-text, you can search for the journal's title in the library catalog. If the library does not own a subscription to the periodical you need, you may request a copy of the article through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow 2 - 3 days for the article to arrive.

A. SportDiscus
To retrieve articles that come from research and scholarly periodicals, check the box for "peer reviewed" articles

B. PsycInfo
To retrieve articles that come from research and scholarly periodicals, check the box for "peer reviewed" articles. To retrieve articles that are literature reviews, under "methodology" select "literature review".

C. Medline (available through ScienceDirect and PubMED)

D. ERIC Materials Indexed In Eric:
ED Documents (unpublished and on microfiche)
EJ Documents (articles in periodicals)

To limit searches to journal articles only, enter search statement in the first box. Scroll down the screen until you see the box labeled "Special limiters for ERIC." At the box labeled "Journal or Document," click onthe arrow and select "Journal Articles."

E. CINAHL
To retrieve scholarly articles in CINAHL, check the box "peer reviewed".

Interdisciplinary Databases
You may get some full-text articles from these databases. Because the databases are interdisciplinary, they may not provide as many articles as you need. Supplement your searches with specialized databases.
Last Update: February 11, 2008