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Electronically request and receive articles, book chapters, or other resources when unavailable in full-text from the NU Library.
Why use Articles?
Articles provide highly specific information on a topic and are often the first place where new research is discussed. Use discipline databases to find news, trade, professional, and academic articles. The articles published in scholarly, academic journals are often peer-reviewed.
What is Peer Review?
Peer-reviewed (refereed) articles are certified by experts in the field before they are accepted for publication.
Brief Glossary:
What is Primary Research?
Primary research articles are original reports of new research findings. The best way to find an original (primary) research article is to use a library database. Here you will find materials not freely available on the web. Most databases let you limit your searches to articles from peer-reviewed journals published within a certain date range. You will still need to review each article to determine if the author(s) conducted an original study.
Tip 1:
When researching a question, don't use complete sentences. Instead, use the most important keywords!
For example:
How are mobile devices affecting education?
The most important keywords are:
mobile devices AND education
Tip 2:
Use Boolean operators to modify your search. This is very useful when you are searching for journal articles!
Boolean Operators
AND OR NOT
AND will narrow your search results:
"global warming" AND glaciers
OR will expand your search results:
"mobile devices" OR smartphones
NOT will exclude certain results:
cowboys NOT football
Tip 3
Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. This will help you find more specific results! For example:
social media = 8221 results
"social media" = 1140 results
Tip 4
Use an asterisk (*) after a set of letters to perform a truncated search. This will find variations of a word. For example:
musc*
will find results containing the words...
muscle, muscular, musculoskeletal, etc.
View the link below to see when to use the library database v. Google
Search for articles, books, dissertations, and more
How to Find a Journal
Need an article from a specific journal? Use the box below to see if our library has the journal you're interested in.
Found a great journal or article database that you would like us to add to the library's collection? Let us know!
Finding full-text is easy if you know what you're looking for (refer to image below):
Click image for larger view.
Constructing an Effective Search
The following searches use selected EBSCO databases. Feel free to begin with these searches then modify to focus on your own research questions:
Try the following synonyms as you explore ways to modify your search strategy:
educational technology: instructional technology, multimedia, multimedia instruction, computer assisted instruction, instructional materials, visual aids, educational media, educational television, technology integration, computer uses in education, technology uses in education, simulation, simulated environment, games, gaming
classroom: classroom management, classroom environment
school: elementary, primary, intermediate, secondary, middle school, junior high, high school
teacher: teacher role, teacher competencies
curriculum: curricula, instructional design, study & teaching, teaching methods, educational strategies, learning strategies, critical thinking, problem solving, classroom techniques, instructional effectiveness
learning styles: learning modalities, intermode differences
online education: online courses, online learning, virtual, web-based instruction, electronic learning
Remember that each database has a thesaurus of acceptable index terms. If you use the "language of the database," you'll find more relevant results.
Content: Includes full-text scholarly journals and dissertations supporting research on the theory and practice of education. It also covers literature and research on special education, home schooling, adult education, and hundreds of related topics.
Purpose: Provides access to a large range of full-text journals and dissertations supporting research on the theory and practice of education..
Special Features: Includes a read-aloud feature.
Content: An education database covering curriculum instruction, administration, policy, funding, and related social issues.
Purpose: A specialized database for academic, scholarly, and peer-reviewed resources in the field of education.
Special Features: Includes a tool to discover citing articles, text-to-speech feature for some articles, and a thesaurus feature to assist you in the discovery process.
Content: Scholarly journals, academic content, periodicals and videos covering a broad range of academic disciplines.
Purpose: A good starting point for research with coverage across many disciplines and fields.
Special Features: Text-to-speech listening feature. Tool to help discover citing articles.
Content: Full-text peer-reviewed journals, transactions, magazines, conference proceedings, and published standards in the areas of electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.
Purpose: Users may learn about technology industry information
Special Features: Users may search datasets
Content: Scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles only, in health science, biomedical science, engineering, social science, and the humanities.
Purpose: Use for scholarly research in most fields.
Special Features: Includes discipline hubs for browsing and citation search.
