A journal is a specific type of academic publication. Like magazines, new parts of journals are published regularly throughout the year. This may be monthly, biannually (twice a year) or quarterly (every three months) and each of these parts is referred to as a journal issue.
Each journal issue contains a collection of short pieces of writing called articles. Articles are written by academic staff from universities and other research institutions. The types of articles are referred to as peer reviewed and provide information about current research. They will be referred to during your studies.
Many journals are published electronically, but the convention is to reference them using the print details i.e., volume, issue and page numbers. (See the section below called Interpreting a journal reference).
All full text journal articles subscribed to by The Library are available through Library Search. If you are looking for a specific article just enter the title into the search box. For more general searches enter some keywords - the results page will give you plenty of options to limit and improve your search.
The presentations below will show you how to find articles using Library Search.
For more comprehensive and controlled searches, the Key Databases, and Design a search strategy tabs will provide better options with links to subject specific resources. If you need help with these, check out the Library training programme or contact your subject librarian Norma Menabney.
