Find Articles on Your Topic
The easiest way to find articles on your topic is to use a library database.
Note: If searching from off-campus, you will need to authenticate with your SCU ID and password to use any library database.
Some of the databases you can use for your project are listed below. Most of them allow you to limit your search for "Peer Reviewed Articles" if you are looking for scholarly articles.
If available, always use the "Advanced Search Mode" when you search the database.
- Women's Studies International This link opens in a new windowThe ultimate women's studies resource! Includes over 540,000 records drawn from a variety of essential women's studies databases. 1972-present.
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowGenderWatch enhances gender and women's studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research by providing authoritative perspectives from 1970 to present. GenderWatch provides access to over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full-text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses.
- Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new windowContains more than 1,800 full-text articles and over 14,000 abstracts from scholarly journals and dissertations in the social sciences such as criminal justice, education, language behavior, linguistics, political science, sociology, etc.
- LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new windowContains all of the content available in LGBT Life as well as full text for more than 140 of the most important and historically significant LGBTQ+ journals, magazines and regional newspapers, plus full text for 150 monographs/books. The database includes comprehensive indexing and abstract coverage as well as a specialized LGBTQ+ Thesaurus containing over 10,000 terms.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowProvides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics, biology, and other fields of the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title. Updated monthly.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowSearchable database that provides access to the full text of journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press and other university presses in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.
- OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new windowThis multi-disciplinary database provides the complete content - indexing, abstracts, and full text - from six of Wilson's full-text databases: Education Full Text, General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Business Full Text. Full-text articles from five additional periodical databases are also included when available: Applied Science & Technology Full Text, Art Full Text, Biological & Agricultural Index, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, and Library Literature & Information Science Full Text. Indexing begins in 1982, abstracts in 1984, and full-text coverage in 1994. Updated daily.
- Gale OneFile: News This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text access to more than 1,100 major U.S. regional, national and local newspapers as well as leading titles from around the world. It also includes thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts. Time coverage varies by title, with some going back to the early 80s. It includes the New York Times from 1985 to the present.
Searching Strategies
Choose a database from the list on the left. Enter keywords describing your topic. For example, if you are interested in issues faced by transgender people in the workplace, you can enter:
transgender and workplace
or
transgender and employment
You can enter synonyms /related terms in the same box (workplace or employment).
You can use an asterisk to pick up different endings of a word. For example, work* would search for work as well as workplace.
Getting the full-text of database articles:
1. If the database you are using has the full-text article, just click on the link (pdf or htmil).
2. If the full-text is not available, click on Find It@SCU Libraries:
- Is the article available in another database (e.g., Wilson OmniFile, JSTOR)? If so, click on the link and follow the citation information (e.g., volume, issue, date of publication, etc.)
- Does the library have this journal in print? Go to the OSCAR record and request the issue you need from the ARS.
- If the library doesn't have access to the full-text of the article, you will be offered the option of ordering it through the interlibrary loan service (which is free).