HHP231 - Searching for peer-reviewed articles

I. What is the difference between Journal articles and Magazine articles?

  vs.

 The term "periodicals" refers to both journal and magazine articles.  There is a clear difference, however, between the two.

Journal articles are scholarly and academic. Many are written by professional scholars in a particular field and can use a highly specialized language. The content of journal articles is usually substantiated with a bibliography.  Most journal articles list the authors' name and sometimes their academic credentials and institutional background, as well.  Journals tend to be very text oriented, without a lot of pictures or advertisements. Journal articles are what you use for college level research!

Magazine articles tend to be more accessible, general, and appealing to the public-at-large.  Many magazine articles will not list authors.  Most magazine articles will not include bibliographies.  Magazines have pictures and advertisements.   Generally, you do not want to use magazine articles for college level research.

Popular Magazine                                                           Scholarly Journals

geared to laymen, nonprofessionals                                  geared to researchers, professionals

articles written by staff, sometimes unsigned                    articles written by researchers and experts

discuss current events, issues of general interest              report primary research results

no bibliographies at the end of articles                              bibliographies at the end of articles

advertisements                                                               no advertisements

color pictures                                                                 statistical tables, diagrams

II. What is the difference between original research vs report/review articles

  Original research articles include operational methodology, which means a procedure reported in enough detail to be followed like a recipe by other researches, and an analysis and discussion of data gathered by the researcher(s)/author(s) of the articles.  Original research articles nearly always follow a standard format which includes:

Abstract
Introduction or Literature Review
Methods
Results
Discussion/Conclusion
Bibliography/References

    Review/report articles are different from original research articles, providing overviews or reports on different topics and synthesizing information gathered from other, sometimes original research sources.  Although these articles may be considered "research" articles, they are however reports based on other scientists' original publications .

III. How do I locate peer reviewed articles?

• Go to the COCC Library homepage.
• Under "Articles & more: Databases," select Health Sciences.
• then click on Health Source Nursing. This database provides  ull text access to periodical articles (magazines and journals).
• once in the database, enter your search terms in the Find box(es).
• note that Ebsco allows you to select any limiters available on the green "Refine Search" sub-tab. Use the box Scholarly Publications/Peer Reviewed to limit your results to scholarly/professional articles - this is a really handy feature to use! You may also limit your results to to "Full Text", if you are interested in getting only those articles available full-text through this database.

EXAMPLE: