What are periodicals?

Periodicals are documents which are published by organizations at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.). There are three types of periodicals: popular, trade, and scholarly.

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What is the difference?

Popular magazines usually have a bright cover with many illustrations and advertisements. They are designed to appeal to a broad segment of the population, or at least a large population with a common interest, like hunting (Field & Stream), a certain school (Touchstone), or of a certain age group (Senior Musician, Campus Life). The magazine articles are sometimes unsigned, and a general editor reviews all the articles. Popular magazines are an important source of information, but the content would not be as long or have the depth of scholarly journal articles. They can be used for college papers, but the student should also include scholarly journals for depth and authority. Examples of popular magazines include Christianity Today, Time, Newsweek, or Christian Single.

Trade journals provide information of use to a particular industry or vocation. They may also be well illustrated, and often have advertising appealing to those in the field or discipline. Their treatment of a subject is not usually considered 'scholarly' but more practical in application. The purpose is to keep those in the field informed and up-to-date concerning the particular trade or occupation. Examples of trade journals include Early Childhood Today, American Artist, American Music Teacher, Children's Ministry, and Christian Computing Magazine.

Scholarly journals have a more serious appearance. The title often includes words like 'journal,' 'Quarterly,' 'Annual,' 'Transactions,' or 'Proceedings.' The articles are written by professors, researchers, and sometimes students. The authors and their qualifications/positions are clearly stated. Sometimes there is an abstract, which is a paragraph at the beginning of the article giving an overview of the research method and findings. The articles are reviewed by a board of experts under the leadership of the journal management. Therefore, we also call these journals 'peer-reviewed.' This lends a lot of credibility to the content. There is usually very little advertising, and articles usually contain a bibliography, footnotes or endnotes. The articles are usually longer than trade or popular journals. Whereas popular and trade journal articles maybe 2 - 5 pages, scholarly journal articles are usually from 7 - 25 pages, sometimes longer. Scholarly journals are often published by an academic organization or college/university.

To determine if an on-line journal is scholarly, the same principles apply. Look to see if the sources are cited, who the publisher is, and who the author is. When using the EBSCO-HOST on-line database, you have the option of searching for peer-reviewed articles only, which is an easy way to get right to the more authoritative articles. If you are not sure if the periodical you are using is scholarly, ask a librarian.

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Why use them?

Periodicals offer a more current treatment of subjects than do books. Books often take at least a year, often more, to go from manuscript to publication and distribution. Periodicals also offer a more diverse and varied treatment of subjects than is available in books. Book publishers have to be concerned with the potential of a certain title to sell so many copies. However, an article on the same subject may be available in journals long before it is treated in books. Including recently published, authoritative periodicals in your research papers will demonstrate to professors that you have effort to find the most current and accurate information on any particular field of study.

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How can I find them?

There are three main ways of finding periodicals for your research at Davis.

1. In-house Periodicals. Use the library computer catalog to search the indexing of the in-house magazines and journals Davis subscribes to. The librarian indexes all the relevant articles of the 500 or so periodicals the library receives. You can search by subject, author or title. Fill out a form available at the terminals to request these periodicals. Periodicals do not leave the library, but you can copy the articles at the copier (15 cents per page), or just study the article in the library.

2. On-Line Databases. You can also search the two main periodical databases available on the college web page. You will need your username and password to use these services. See the separate tutorials for EbscoHost and FirstSearch for in-depth help on these. These provide thousands of journal titles, and many of the articles are available full-text. You can read them on the screen or email the full article to yourself. See the last section of this document for a listing and further description of these databases.

If you find an important article and it is not available full-text, you may request it by inter-library loan. You may request this by email or in person. The librarian needs the journal title, article title and author, year, volume and issue (if available), and date (season or month). Interlibrary loan usually takes a week or two.

3. On-Line Journals. On the search screen of the library web page, select the On-Line Journals link to search about 1,650 free on-line journals in a variety of disciplines.

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How Scholarly Journals are documented on the Works Cited page of an MLA formatted research paper:

Author of article first, followed by title of article in quotation marks, followed by underlined title of journal, followed by volume number (and issue number if necessary), year of publication and page numbers. If they are longer than one line, indent the second line 5 spaces, as shown in the examples below.

Journals with page numbers that start at one in each issue:

Hallin, Daniel C. "Sound Bite News: Television Coverage of Elections,

1968-1988." Journal of Communication 42.2 (1992): 5-24

Journals with page numbers that run continuously through an annual volume (in this case the page numbers in each issue may not start at one, but continue where the last issue left off):

Bowman, A. L. "Women in Ministry: An Exegetical Study of I Timothy 2:8-15."

Bibliotheca Sacra 149 (1992): 193-213.

The only difference between these two types is that one includes the issue number and the other leaves it out. (In the first example, the issue number is located after the decimal point and before the year).

If the periodical you are using has no volume/issue numbers, it is most likely not a scholarly journal

For more information on MLA documentation, take a look at the latest edition of the MLA Handbook, or check one of the links on the Instruction and Tutorials page that offer MLA citing advice on-line. There are also free handouts in the library on MLA citations.

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Online Databases

When research material cannot be found in print at libraries, another important source of information is the Internet, specifically online databases that can be accessed in many locations on the Davis College campus (i.e. the library, computer lab).

What are they? They are Internet sites created by organizations that have been given permission by publishing companies to provide access to books, periodicals (journals) and newspapers. Though some databases are limited to brief summary or abstract citation, many will allow researchers (students) full-text access to these items.

Databases that can be accessed:

Through EBSCO Host:

Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection -- 550 full text journals

General Science Collection -- 60 full text science publications

MasterFILE Select -- approximately 800 full text reference publications

Academic Search Elite -- 2000+ full text scholarly journals in many fields

Business Source Elite -- 1,128 full text business journals

Newspaper Source -- 25 full text national/international newspapers

Professional Development Collection -- 550+ high quality education journals

... and more.

Through OCLC First Search:

Article First -- Index of articles from content pages of journals

ERIC -- journal articles and reports in education

MEDLINE -- covers all areas of medicine

Papers First -- Index of papers presented at conferences worldwide

Union Lists -- List of periodicals held by OCLC member libraries

Wilson Select Plus -- Full text articles in Science, Humanities, Education and Business

World Cat -- OCLC catalog of books and other items in libraries worldwide

... and more.

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