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*Sociology: Subject Guide: Finding Scholarly Articles

EASY Off Campus Access to Journals/Articles

Install and login to the Cisco AnyConnect VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your computer so that you are logged into the GSU network and will be automatically routed to GSU-subscribed journals. It’s available for download and instructions for using on the following platforms are available here: Windows | Mac | Android | Apple iOS

NOTE: There's a point where the directions tell you to enter secureaccess.gsu.edu as what to connect to.

Getting to Articles from Databases & Citations/References

Getting to Articles within Databases

If there's not a direct linked full text version of the article appearing in the results record:

1: Look for a "Full-Text" or "PDF" link that will take you directly to the article. If yes, great. If not, go to #2.

2: Look for the FINDIT @ GSU button. Click on it. If the journal title shows up, click the link to see what the online availability is. If not, go to #3.

3: If you see a message indicating no electronic full text is available and also indicating the library doesn't have it in print, go to #4.

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

Getting to Articles from Citations/References

Linked here are steps for searching whether the library owns the journal in which the cited article was published.

Cited Reference Searching

Found an incredibly relevant source for your topic? Do cited reference searches to find researchers who are citing that relevant source - their research might be relevant to you as well, and even more current.

Mining References

Found an incredibly relevant source for your topic? Mine its references for previously-published sources the authors are citing that might also be relevant to your research.

These databases are good to search, regardless of your specific topic:

  • Academic Search Complete - do a search, then to the left of the results click the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals to limit your search to peer-reviewed/scholarly journals
  • Sociological Collection - do a search, then to the left of the results click the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals to limit your search to peer-reviewed/scholarly journals

​^^^^The above EBSCOhost databases can be searched simultaneously:

Click into one of the databases > before doing your search, click the Choose Databases link > checkbox the relevant databases for your research topic > click OK button > go forth and search!

  • Sociological Abstracts - click the Peer Reviewed checkbox under the search field to limit your search to peer-reviewed/scholarly journals
  • Google Scholar - To see the fulltext links for GSU: On Google Scholar main page, click the menu icon in the top left of the screen, then click Settings, then at next screen click Library Links, search for Georgia State University, checkbox Georgia State University - FullText @ GSU, then click save. Then when looking at search results, instead of clicking the article title to try to access it, click on FullText @ GSU link to be routed through GSU-access (you might have to click a double-arrow under the citation to see all the options).

Then possibly search these other databases for specific topic areas:

​^^^^The above EBSCOhost databases can be searched simultaneously (along with Academic Search Complete and Sociological Collection):

Click into one of the databases > before doing your search, click the Choose Databases link > checkbox the relevant databases for your research topic > click OK button > go forth and search!

^^^^We have many more databases than these!

To find other databases to search, check out our A-Z list, other research guides related to your topic, or consult with me (aswygarthobaugh@gsu.edu) about what might be best to search for your topic.

Scholarly vs. Popular Articles Tutorial

Tutorial on strategies for discerning whether an article is SCHOLARLY or POPULAR:

 

Empirical vs. Non-Empirical Scholarly Articles Tutorial

Tutorial on strategies for discerning whether a scholarly article is EMPIRICAL or not: