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You may search virtually all of our databases
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password.)
For technical assistance with your NetID, students may contact
the UIS Technology Support Center at 217-206-7357 or toll-free
within Illinois at 1-877-847-0443.
Choose a Database | Phrasing a Search Query | I have a citation to articles. Now what? | How do I know if this is a scholarly article?
Choose a Database
You are not going to want to search all 90+ databases that we subscribe to. Instead you are going to want to consider the scope and coverage of individual databases to determine which ones suit your needs. The databases are arranged by subject on our Find Articles page, as well as a list of databases alphabetically.
What kind of database you want to use depends on what kind of research you want to do.
I just need some recent articles on my topic.
Try one or more of these 3 databases:
Academic Search Premier -- full text articles from
around 4,500 magazines and journals and indexing for around
8,000 periodicals total; covers more journals than the other two. If the article isn't available full text right there, click on the  button. This will automatically search our Journals @ UIS database to see if we have it full text in another database, or if we have a physical subscription to the journal.
Expanded Academic ASAP -- full text articles
from around 1,000 magazines and journals, with citations from
another 500 sources; offers better subject headings than the other two. If the article isn't available full text right there, click on the link Find it?. This will automatically search our Journals @ UIS database to see if we have it full text in another database, or if we have a physical subscription to the journal.
WilsonSelectPlus -- this is another useful database for finding journal articles. All the records have the full text article attached. To limit to scholarly journals, under the Limit to: Reviewed Journal Phrase, choose Peer Reviewed. I want to do a comprehensive search for articles on my topic.
Try one or more of these 3 databases:
Criminal Justice Abstracts -- comprehensive index for
criminology, indexing around 500 periodicals back to 1968. Always click the View Complete Record to see the summary of the article, what type of source it is, etc. Click on the button. This will automatically search our Journals @ UIS database to see if we have it full text in another database, or if we have a physical subscription to the journal.
LexisNexis Academic -- If you are interested in doing a more comprehensive search for articles offering a legal analysis of issues, try this database. Click on Legal Research, then Law Reviews. (Law reviews offer articles written primarily by law school students, but some are by law professors/legal professionals.) Virtually everything in this database is full text.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service -- two databases of indexing and full text of government reports and periodical articles from the U.S. Department of Justice back to the early 1970s.
If you are interested in doing a more comprehensive search for articles from other disciplines, such as psychology or sociology, see Find Articles - Social Sciences for descriptions of our other major databases.
I want to find the key articles on my topic.
Social Sciences Citation Index analyzes the citations within the article, so one
can figure out who is citing whom in their research. You may sort the result list by "times cited." (This option is at the top right of the search results screen in Web of Science.) To locate the entire article, either click on the button, or if it is in ScienceDirect, there will be a  button.
I want to find news coverage of an issue.
While the All Subjects databases will have magazine articles, try LexisNexis Academic. It has hundreds of full text newspaper and news magazine articles.
If you just want Illinois news articles, try:
- Chicago Tribune (back to 1985)
- LexisNexis Academic (click on Guided News Search, U.S. News, then pick Illinois for the state, back to the 1990s)
- Newsdex (indexes State Journal-Register & Illinois Times, back to 1980 -- no full text!)
You might also want to try Illinois Issues [print JK5701.I47, in REF and Level 3], a monthly magazine on state politics from UIS.
Phrasing a Search Query
When looking for articles, you will want to be more specific
than you were for finding books. Articles tend to be on narrow
topics, and there are usually summaries of the articles in
the citations, or even the entire article. If you look for
a general topic, you will probably be overwhelmed with results.
Boil down your issue into keywords. Think of synonyms for
your keywords. I'd suggest sticking to the nouns and ignoring
verbs and adjectives. (For instance, there are just way too
many words to describe the abstract concept of "good.")
Unless you want to browse subject headings, most of the databases
will want you to format your search query using Boolean logic,
where you type in single words or simple phrases, combining
terms with the connectors AND, OR, or NOT.
Example: If you want to find articles on the legalization
or decriminalization of marijuana, you would type marijuana
AND (legalization OR decriminalization)
Too many results?
- Try searching by subject heading, though this
may actually get you more results rather than fewer.
- Add more search terms. Try to think about what other aspects of the subject subject you want the articles to reflect.
- Keyword search within a field. You can usually
narrow your search by using the Subject, Title, or Source
fields within the record.
- Also, note any limiters available on a particular
database: date range, language, publication types (journal
article, peer-reviewed, dissertation, etc.).
Too few results?
- Try looking for more versions of your keyword,
like plurals or variations of the word. To look for variations
of a stem of a word in most databases, type the stem followed
by an asterisk (*). In a few databases, it's a +
or a ? or a $ or an !. Consult the
online help for the particular database for "truncation."
- Try to think of other words to describe your topic.
What words could someone possibly use to describe your
issue?
I have citations to articles. Now
what?
Go to the Journals @ UIS to see if your periodical is
- available full text, or
- owned in print or microfilm by us.
Type in the name of the journal, magazine or newspaper and click the search button.
If we have it full text access, the databases will be listed under the heading Full Text . You can either plug in the citation information for the article you want, or just click on the GO button to jump to that database and browse or keyword search for your article.
Print or microfilm holdings are listed under the Holding Information heading. If it's a print subscription, note the call number and the format for the year you need. (If it doesn't indicate a format, then it's in print, versus microfilm.)
If we do not own/have access to the article you want, fill out the Interlibrary Loan form and we'll mail you a copy of the article. Please allow 1-3 weeks. How do I know if this is a scholarly article?
This isn't as easy as it sounds. Criminal Justice periodicals come in a wide variety of types, from glossy trade journals (magazines aimed at law enforcement personnel or professionals) such as Police Chief, to not-so-glossy government agency publications such as FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, to very scholary, peer-reviewed journals such as the British Journal of Criminology.
One important step is to at least see if the periodical itself is considered to be a scholarly journal.
- If you use Academic Search Premier or Expanded Academic ASAP, you can limit your search to peer-reviewed journals, or those publications that have experts evaluate submissions via a blind, peer-review process.
- If you have a periodical name and want to know if it's a peer-reviewed journal, you can try searching for it in Academic Search Premier's Publication Search (green button at the top that says Publications). They have brief records on thousands of periodicals, with a section on whether it's peer-reviewed.
- Or look for the website for the periodical via Google. Virtually all periodicals have a web presence and journals will have a section about their scope and how to submit article proposals.
But just because the article came from a peer-reviewed journal does not automatically make it a scholarly research-based article. Peer-reviewed journals can sometimes have editorials or other types of articles in them as well. The best thing to do is evaluate the article itself.
- Who wrote it? Is that person(s) an expert in the field? -- Scholarly articles will be written by professors or researchers.
- Who is it aimed at? Is it aimed at criminal justice academics, or law enforcement personnel? -- Scholarly articles will be aimed at academics.
- What is the article about? Is it clearly a rigorous study, with details on how the author went about doing the research, the methodology, etc.? Or is it more of an anecdotal article about "best practices" or "how we solved this problem in our department?" -- Scholarly articles will be the former.
- Are there references? If yes, how many and what kind of sources are being referenced? -- Scholarly articles will have several references, and they will be primarily from other journals and not magazines or websites.
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