Forrer Learning Commons Library Services: FILA 150 Sustainability Class Guide: Finding Academic Articles and Resources

Before You Start Searching

Before you open one of the below databases, please checkout how to search in databases within the "Research Basics" tab. If you take the time to decide on a topic, create keywords, and use the database searching tools that will make the most sense for your assignment, you will find sources for your paper much more efficiently.

Looking for something in particular?:

At the very least, before entering a database, you should have brainstormed the keywords that you would like to search in the database. Searching a thesis statement exactly as it appears will not yield results in the same way as it would if you were searching within Google.

What is an Academic Source?

How do you know if a title is an academic source or a popular source? What is peer review?

An academic/scholarly resource:

Is generally written by faculty members, medical doctors, and scholars for the purpose of scholarship
Uses technical language that is not intended to be understand by the general populace, but rather an expert in the field in which it is published
Often will go through the peer-review process, which is intended to ensure the validity of the resource:

A popular resource:

Is ordinarily written by a professional journalist or writer, and is intended to be read by a general populace (rather than experts in the field)
Written in easily-understood language and cover broader topics
Are not evaluated by experts in the field
Lack a list of resources that were referenced by the author during the writing process

Useful Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is the online archives of scholarly journals in most fields. Full text begins with the first issue of many journals and ends with issues 5-7 years old.
OMNIFILE/MEGA This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of articles from over 2,500 publications, and indexing and abstracts from nearly 3,600 publications, providing support for research in all core undergraduate subjects and for cross-disciplinary work

Environmental Science Databases

Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
Covers applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources and many others. Index/abstract access to over 2,000 journals and full text access to 920.
Nature This link opens in a new window
Full text access to the prestigious journal Nature (online 1997 - present). Indexing access for the other journals from the Nature Publishing Group. Library has older issues in bound volumes, years: 1953 - 1968 and 1990 - 2003.
ScienceDirect: Health & Life Sciences Journal Collection This link opens in a new window
Offers journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books. We subscribe to the Health Sciences and Life Sciences module.

FILA 150 Sustainability Class Guide

Research Help

Before You Start Searching

What is an Academic Source?

Useful Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

Environmental Science Databases