Abstracts and some full text of the world's leading journals in political science.
Full text as well as abstracts and references to journal articles, reference books, and conference papers.
Multi-disciplinary source for scholarly, popular, professional, and news publications. This is a good place to start many searches or to gather material from various disciplines at once.
Complete digitized back runs of core scholarly journals.
Includes full-text resources and indexing for the U.S. Congress. Access Congressional hearings, committee reports, witness testimony, and other publications. Content also includes the Congressional Record and its predecessors, documents from the Congressional Research Service, and information about current and historic members of Congress.
Covers U.S. government information resources, including Congressional, judiciary, and executive branch documents.
Provides full-text primary and secondary sources for legal and government information. Collections include scholarly journals, judicial and Congressional publications, and legal reference materials, with a substantial focus on historical resources.
Citations and many full text links to journals, monographs, and conference papers in the area of the environment, including agriculture, ecology, energy, natural resources, marine science, pollution and waste management, public policy, social impacts, and urban planning.
Provides digital images on every page of legal treatises on U.S. and British law published from 1800 through 1926.
Digital archive of the published records of the American colonies, documents published by state constitutional conventions, state codes, city charters, law dictionaries, digests and more.
Describes the courtroom dramas that rocked society in America, the British Empire and the world through unofficially published accounts of trials; official trial documents, briefs and arguments; and official records of legislative proceedings, administrative proceedings and arbitrations. Collections include not only published trial transcripts, but also popular printed accounts of sensational trials for murder, adultery and other scandalous crimes.
Digital archives of early U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs.
Covers the immediate experience of women in the form of diaries and letters. The collection also includes biographies and an annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
Provides indexing and substantial abstracts for books, book chapters, scholarly journal articles, government reports, and dissertations related to the field of criminal justice.
Periodical is a term used to describe any publication that is published multiple times (periodically). Periodicals include materials such as popular magazines, scholarly journals, professional journals and newsletters, and newspapers.
It is important to understand the difference between a popular and a scholarly periodical. When you are doing research, most of your sources should be scholarly or professional.
Often popular periodicals are called magazines and scholarly periodicals are called journals. Many times it will be acceptable to use some popular material, but research papers should not be based solely on popular literature.
Explore this visual aid describing the key elements of an academic journal article: Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.
| Criteria | Popular Magazine | Professional Journal | Scholarly Journal |
| Example |
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| Content |
Secondary discussion of someone else's research; may include personal narrative or opinion; general information, purpose is to entertain or inform. | Current news, trends and products in a specific industry; practical information for professionals working in the field or industry. | In-depth, primary account of original findings written by the researcher(s); very specific information, with the goal of scholarly communication. |
| Author | Author is frequently a journalist paid to write articles, may or may not have subject expertise. | Author is usually a professional in the field, sometimes a journalist with subject expertise. | Author's credentials are provided; usually a scholar or specialist with subject expertise. |
| Audience |
General public; the interested non-specialist. | Professionals in the field; the interested non-specialist. | Scholars, researchers, and students. |
| Language | Vocabulary in general usage; easily understandable to most readers. | Specialized terminology or jargon of the field, but not as technical as a scholarly journal. | Specialized terminology or jargon of the field; requires expertise in subject area. |
| Graphics | Graphs, charts and tables; lots of glossy advertisements and photographs. | Photographs; some graphics and charts; advertisements targeted to professionals in the field. | Graphs, charts, and tables; very few advertisements and photographs. |
| Layout & Organization | Informal; may include non-standard formatting. May not present supporting evidence or a conclusion. | Informal; articles organized like a journal or a newsletter. Evidence drawn from personal experience or common knowledge. | Structured; includes the article abstract, goals and objectives, methodology, results (evidence), discussion, conclusion, and bibliography. |
| Accountability | Articles are evaluated by editorial staff, not experts in the field; edited for format and style. | Articles are evaluated by editorial staff who may be experts in the field, not peer-reviewed*; edited for format and style. | Articles are evaluated by peer-reviewers* or referees who are experts in the field; edited for content, format, and style. |
| References | Rare. Little, if any, information about source materials is given. | Occasional brief bibliographies, but not required. | Required. Quotes and facts are verifiable. |
| Paging | Each issue begins with page 1. | Each issue generally begins with page 1. | Page numbers are generally consecutive throughout the volume. |
Adapted from Scholarly, Trade, or Popular by Gateway Communiity College.
