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Scholarly Articles and Journals

There are several ways to get full-text journal articles.

If you are seeking a specific journal article where you know the author, title and journal, you can usually find the article at the journal's website. Many journals charge a fee. Before ordering the article, try writing to the author directly -- either through a Google search or through the University website where the author is affiliated. Authors will often be happy to send you paper or electronic copies of their published work.

If you are looking for any and all scholarly articles written on a specific topic, there are specialized search engines:

• Google Scholar finds peer-reviewd papers, dissertations, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Not all are full-text, but there is at least an abstract, along with information on how to get the full-text version if it is available. Google Scholar is still in the beta (i.e., developmental) stage. It works in a similar way to the regular Google search engine -- using mathematical algorithms to match your search terms with documents on the Web. Just as with the regular search engine, it won't find everything.
  
  
• Another way to find scholarly articles via Google is to use the regular Google search engine, but at the word "abstract" to your other search terms. Since most journal articles begin with an abstract, these will appear at the top of your search results.
  
  
• Scirus finds reports, peer-reviewed articles and journal articles. There are also advanced search options not available at Google Scholar, such as selecting information type, content sources and file formats. If you do a lot of scientific searching you can download the Scirus toolbar that makes using this search engine more convenient.
  
  
• Infomine is one of the "deep web" search engines that specializes in academic information, including databases, electronic journals and books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, articles, and directories of researchers.

  Turbo10 is deep web metasearch engine, scanning over 700 specialized search engines. You can specify up to ten of them per search.

• Psycline is an index to social science journals and some journal articles.
  
  
• Free Medical Journals lists publications that offer free articles.
  
  
• The American Psychological Association offers access to full-text journal articles for a fee. Prices vary, ranging from a single article to a year's worth of unlimited access to articles, databases, government and private research papers, books and more.
  
  
• Questia is another fee-based service. It claims to have full text of over 50,000 books and 399,000 journal & magazine articles. There are additional features, including allowing you to highlight text, to automatically generate APA-style citations for selected quotes, and to save your workspace.
  
  
• Elsevier's Science Direct allows non-subscribers to search for abstracts and tables of contents of scientific books and journals. Individual articles are for sale without a subscription, but they are very expensive. You might want to contact the author directly for a reprint before paying $30. for one article.
  
  
• An often overlooked resource is your local public library. Librarians have specialized skills to help you find items relevant to your search. You don't even need to visit the library in person. Most libraries have websites where you can ask questions, or get access to online databases not available to individuals. All you need to do is log in with your library card number and password. My local library's website is a gateway to the huge EBSCOHost database that includes thousands of full-text articles and citations, mainly in the fields of medicine, business and education. Check with your library to find out what they have to offer. You may also be able to order free copies of journal articles through your local library.

Magazines are a good source when you seek information that is more comprehensive than a newspaper article, but not as specialized as a scientific journal. Magazine articles typically cite experts, whose work you can research further. The largest collection of online magazine articles (including some journals and trade magazines) is at Findarticles.com. Not all are free, but you can limit your search to free articles only. MagPortal specializes in free online magazine articles, some of which are not available in paper format. Here you can also save your searches.