What are periodicals?
Periodicals, also known as serials, are publications with distinctive titles that are produced at regular or stated intervals with no determined publishing end date.
Examples:
- Magazines
- Journals
- Newsletters
- Newspapers
Why do I need periodical articles for my research?
Articles tend to be more narrowly focused than books and, of course, they can bring you up to date on your subject since a book is static once it is published. Magazine and newspaper articles written for the general public to inform, entertain, or persuade can often give the best look at the social and political issues resonating within a population at a particular point in time and, as such, can represent valuable primary sources for historical research. Secondary articles, written by scholars and published in scholarly journals, are the building blocks for in-depth research and one of the primary means by which scholars and experts in a field pass on their theories, research and findings.
How to Get Full-Text
When searching for journal articles, you will notice the View Now button on many of your search results. Clicking on the View Now button will lead you to the article itself, links to the full text of the article, or it will let you know that we do not have full text of the article.
If the full text is not available, you can search InfoKat Discovery for a print copy of the article. If we do not have a print copy, you can request an interlibrary loan (ILL). For articles, these usually arrive pretty quickly.
Have questions? Ask Us for help.
General Periodical Database
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Multidisciplinary database (covers subjects from agriculture to zoology) that includes both popular magazines and scholarly journals. A significant percentage of the articles are provided as online full-text publications. For some titles, coverage goes back as far as the 1970s, but most begin in the 1980s or more recently.
Scholarly/Professional Journal Databases
- Agricola
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Provides citations and abstracts of materials acquired by the National Agricultural Library (NAL) and cooperating institutions in the agricultural and related sciences. Ninety percent of the records describe journal articles and book chapters, and the remaining ten percent describe monographs, series, microforms, audiovisuals, maps, and other types of materials. Coverage is worldwide. Most articles are considered professional, but only some are refereed. - America: History and Life
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Includes more than 1700 social science and humanities journals in the field of United States and Canadian history. (Use Historical Abstracts for non-North American coverage.) Links to full-text articles are included when available. - Business Source Complete
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Indexes peer-reviewed business publications, trade journals/general business magazines, some books (most indexed by chapter) and provides online full-text access to a significant number of the articles. In addition, there are full-text industry reports, market research reports, company profiles and country reports. The Country Reports include forecast reports & monitors, CountryWatch reviews, profiles, EIU Country reports, career guides, economic and competitiveness studies, OECD economic surveys, Political Risk Yearbook reports, and SOD background notes. Industry-level resources includes financial alerts, profiles, forecasts, and yearbooks. Market Research reports include utility market, marketwatch, pharmawatch, Gartner G2 reports. Topical coverage includes management, economics, finance, accounting, and international business. - Social Sciences Citation Index
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Indexes scholarly journal literature and some books in the social sciences-anthropology, economics, history, industrial relations, information science, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychiatry, psychology, public health, social issues, social work, sociology, substance abuse, urban studies, and women's studies. - Sociological Abstracts
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Provides international coverage of the literature in theoretical and applied sociology and related disciplines. It includes abstracts of journal articles, conference papers, relevant dissertation listings, citations of book reviews and abstracts of selected sociology books and book chapters.