Databases & Indexes

Journal articles are essential sources for current information on very focused topics. You can find articles in scholarly journals, trade journals, newspapers, and popular magazines. However, very often you will be expected to use articles from scholarly journals (also known as peer-reviewed or refereed journals) for research papers because they must be reviewed by subject experts before they are published. Thus, articles presented in scholarly journals are more authoritative than those in other types of publications.

Below are some examples of databases that index articles in scholarly journals:

ERIC (via EBSCO)
Find full-text articles and citations for journals, books, conference papers, curriculum guides, dissertations, and policy papers in all areas of education. Available on the EBSCO platform.
Tip: On this platform, you may filter by full-text directly from the results page.
Education Source
Find full-text articles, books and monographs, education-related conference papers, and citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews.
Educational Administration Abstracts
Find bibliographic records covering all areas of educational administration, including educational leadership, educational management, and educational research and the administration of primary, secondary and post-secondary educational facilities and programs.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
Find abstracts and citations to international literature in all aspects of the study of language (including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) and linguistics (including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics).
PsycINFO
Find indexed and abstracted articles, dissertations, and book chapters in psychology and behavioral health. Combined PsycARTICLES & PsycINFO search. Available on the ProQuest platform.

Major Relevant Interdisciplinary Databases

Dissertations & Theses: Global
Find doctoral dissertations and master's theses from universities and institutions all around the world.
Nexis Uni
Find news from U.S. and international newspapers, television and radio broadcasts, newswires, and blogs, as well as business profiles, patents, legal research, biography, medicine, and reference. A Source List is available for viewing.
Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
Find full-text articles from hundreds of journals, covering the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences.
Sociological Abstracts
Find abstracting and indexing of sociology, covering journal articles, book reviews, abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations and conference papers.
Web of Science Core Collection (1978-present)
Interdisciplinary subject searching of scholarly articles in the social sciences, physical & life sciences, and arts & humanities. Search for articles that cite known journal articles or books.

Search Tips

Identify key concepts in your research question and put them in separate search boxes.
Put phrases in quotation marks. For example: "cultural revolution"
Use truncation symbol * at the root of a word to find variations of the search term. For example, if you type connect*, the database will look for connect, connects, connected, connecting, connection, connectivity.
When you find too many records, search one or more key concept in the field of Title, Subject term, or Abstract.
When you find too few records, try to use synonyms of your key concepts in your searches. If you still can not find sufficient records, broaden up your research topic.