Journals are regular (serial) publications that publish the outcome of original research and are aimed at other researchers or practitioners. They can be general covering economics as a discipline, or focus on a specific topic.
Journal articles are essays that present new research, or discuss new developments in the field. As such, they focus on in depth analysis of specific issues.
Journal articles undergo peer-review, which is a process of review by experts in the field (peers). It is aimed at validating the research prior to publication of an article, ensuring quality, originality, contribution to the knowledge base, and authority in a research article.
Working papers and pre-prints are pre-publication journal articles and book chapters. They are published early to disseminate research and generate discussion. Working papers may undergo revision and therefore have different versions. Working papers and pre-prints have not undergone peer review.
Journals and journal articles can be found using Library Search, however it does not discover content, so journal or bibliographic databases are preferred for advanced literature searching.
Journal databases index and abstract articles in specific journals. Some are general and index journals across a range of disciplines, and others are subject specific and index only economics, psychology or philosophy journals.
Journal databases are not always full-text: some will include the full-text article, but others will provide an abstract (summary) only. If journal articles are not available, the library has a document supply service.
Some journal databases provide citation information, which allows researcher to measure the usage and impact of articles in their research field, and to find related academic literature. Citation databases can be useful, but they are general in scope, and do not index a wide range of social science journals.
Scopus
Indexes 25,000+ worldwide, peer reviewed journals and conference papers from 1970. Includes citations to measure impact and find related literature. Focus on sciences but also covers arts, humanities and social sciences.
Web of Science
Indexes 22,000+ worldwide, peer reviewed journals and conference papers from 1900. Includes citations to measure impact and find related literature. Focus on sciences, but also covers arts, humanities and social sciences.
ABI/INFORM Global
Indexes business, economics, finance and management journals and newspapers. Includes selected full-text journals, dissertations, working papers, conference papers, country and market reports.
Business Source Ultimate
Indexes business, economics, finance, management and marketing journals. Includes selected full-text journal articles, case studies, country and company reports.
EconLit
Indexes 1,000+ economics and finance journals, working papers, dissertations and books using Journal of Economic Literature classification scheme. Includes full-text articles from over 600 journals, including American Economic Association titles.
APA PsycInfo
Index and abstracts to journal articles, book chapters and dissertations in psychology and the behavioural sciences. Includes 2,400 psychology journal titles from 1806 to the present day.
Access is via the Ovid database platform. Click on 'Continue' to proceed to APA PsycInfo.
ASSIA
Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts indexes and abstracts 500+ journals in health and social care including sociology, psychology and allied social science disciplines from 1987 to the present day.
MEDLINE
The key clinical database for medicine and a good resource for clinical psychology. Index and abstract 5,600 journals in medicine and the allied health sciences, from 1946 to the present day.
MEDLINE uses data from the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) PubMed database and indexes articles using the NLM's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
Access is via the Ovid database platform. Click on 'Continue' to proceed to MEDLINE.
PhilPapers
An index of research literature in philosophy including 2,800,000+ journal articles, books and open access archives. Also includes a structured bibliography of 5,000+ topics in philosophy, and a current awareness service alerting researchers to new publications.
Philosopher's Index
Index to scholarly research on philosophy from 1940 to date, including books and articles from 680+ philosophy journals. Published by the Philosopher's Information Centre.
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