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Africa: Culture & Change: Subject Guide: Find Articles in Scholarly Journals

Locating Articles in Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Journals

There are four ways to locate articles in scholarly journals:

  1. Search for articles using subject-specific or multi-subject databases. Most of the databases relevant to the topic of terrorism are listed on this page. For additional databases, browse through the library's A-Z Database List by name or subject.
  2. Use the library's Discover Search. Discover is a federated search engine that searches most (but not all) of the library's electronic sources (databases) all at once.
  3. Browse or search for articles in specific journals. You can locate journals using the library's Electronic Journal Locator.
  4. Use Google Scholar. Google Scholar is Google's scholarly search engine that searches for academic books and scholarly journal articles.
    1. When used on-campus, Google Scholar will provide you with direct links to the full text of articles subscribed to by the library. 
    2. To see the full text links when off-campus: On the Google Scholar main page, click More and then Settings in top center of screen, then at next screen click Library Links, search for Georgia State University, checkbox Georgia State University - FullText @ GSU. Then when looking at the search results instead of clicking the article title to try to access it click on "More" and then click the FullText @ GSU link to be routed through GSU-access.

Articles not available through the library's website can be requested via the library's free Interlibrary Loan service.

Database Search Tips

1. For off-campus access, you will need to enter your Campus ID and Password after clicking on a link to any of the library's subscription resources.

2. Use the Advanced Search option within the database you are using to achieve the best results.

3. Keep your search terms brief and concise.

4. Check your spelling. Library databases do not correct spelling errors.

5. If your first set of search terms doesn't retrieve any results, try using synonyms that describe your topic.

6. You can search for different forms of a word (different word endings of the same word), by typing the first few letters followed by an asterisk. Example:

  • politic* will search for politic, politics, political, etc.

7. Use double quotation marks around two or more words to search as a phrase. Example:

  • “gender roles" 

8. Use the connecting words AND and OR to narrow or broaden your search. Examples:

  • faith AND belief - to search for articles that include both terms (narrows the search results)
  • faith OR belief - to search for articles that contain either term (broadens the search results)

9. You can create more complex searches by using the words AND and OR in combination with parentheses. Examples:

  • Africa AND (women OR female OR gender) AND (roles OR responsibilities)

How to Locate the Full Text from a Results List:

1: Look for a "Full-Text" or "PDF" link that will take you directly to the article. If there's a link, click on it to access the article.  If not, go to #2.

2: Look for the button.  Click on it.  Look for a "Full text online" link at the top of the page.  If yes, click on it to access the article. If not, you will see "Sorry, no electronic full text is available."  Go to #3.

3: If you see the "Sorry, no electronic full text is available" message, click the link below it that says "We may have a copy in print."  If yes, go to the library to copy the article.  If we do not have it in print, go to #4.

4: Request the article you need through interlibrary loan - typically, requested articles arrive within 1 day, so definitely worth trying!

Ask a Librarian for help if you can't find what you need!