Scholarly Articles
What is a scholarly article?
Scholarly articles are published in journals and undergo a process called peer review, which means they are vetted by experts prior to publication. These experts evaluate articles that are submitted to a journal, and make recommendations to the journal editors about whether or not an article should be published. Academic articles include highly specialized content and they are written assuming readers are already familiar with the research area.
1. Research Guides by Subject
The library’s Research Guides group databases by academic discipline.
Locate the Research Guide for your field, skim the database descriptions and pick 1-2 databases to search for information about your topic
Search term ideas: writing practices | discourse analysis | text analysis | genre analysis | authorship | communication practices | communication strategies | content analysis | rhetoric | language
2. Databases for Linguistics, Communication, Writing Studies and Education
Byeond the subject databases in your discipline, you may find articles by scholars in Linguistics, Communication, Writing Studies or Education that analyze writing practices.
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new windowLinguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Complete coverage is given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,500 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, and dissertations.
[Coverage: 1973-present] - ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) This link opens in a new windowThe ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature. ERIC provides ready access to education literature to augment American education by increasing and facilitating the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making, and research. ERIC provides coverage of journal articles, conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
[Coverage: 1966-present] - MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowThe Modern Language Association International Bibliography (MLAIB) covers international scholarly materials on all languages, literatures, linguistics, and folklore from around the world. It includes citations to items from journals, series, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. MLAIB does not index book reviews.
[Coverage: 1926-present] - Communication Abstracts This link opens in a new windowAbstracts major journals in communication; mass media; and includes topics in interpersonal communication and relations; economics and communication; communication, culture, and society; education and communication and health communication.
[Coverage: 1978-present]
3. Multi-Disciplinary Databases
The databases listed below are multidisciplinary, meaning they include citations to scholarly articles from different subject disciplines. You may find helpful citations in these tools as well.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowAcademic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database broadly covering newspapers, magazines and journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences and technology.
[Coverage: 1887-present]
- Google ScholarSearch across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
- Scopus This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Large interdisciplinary abstract and citation database to academic journal literature, conference proceedings and books with broad coverage across the sciences and social sciences, includes citation tracking tools (Citescore).
[Coverage: full coverage from 1996-present, with selected coverage as far back as 1823] - Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science Core Collection enables searching of top-cited peer-reviewed content across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities with "cited reference" search capabilities. "It is a curated collection of over 20,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including Open Access journals) in over 250 science, social sciences, and humanities disciplines. Conference proceedings and book data are also available." There is also access to Journal Citation Reports which provide impact metrics like the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Scoring. Web of Science also has article, author and institutional citation indices. Includes EndNote Basic online citation management tool.
[Coverage: 1900-present]
Search Tips
1. Limits/Filters: To focus your search, utilize database features that allow you to specify criteria such as date and publication type, e.g. peer reviewed journals.
2. Sort Order: Note how your search results are organized – many databases sort by date (most recent articles first) rather than relevance.
3. Subject Terms/Descriptors: Pay attention to the subject terms associated with relevant articles because they can lead to other sources on your topic.
4. Get an Article: If the full article is not available, look for 
. Use interlibrary loan to request copies of books, articles and other items that are not available through Get it at UC.
5. Not Satisfied? If you are not finding relevant results about your topic, try different combinations of search terms, or select another search tool.