HOW TO FIND JOURNAL ARTICLES

Searching Galileo Databases

Keyword Searching

Subject Searching

Browsing Journals by Title

In Business Source Premier Enhanced, ProQuest Databases, and EBSCOhost Databases.

In Wilson OmniFile

The databases that make up Galileo offer a vast amount of full-text journal literature. Follow the instructions below to find articles using Galileo databases. For some projects, you may find the sources you need using Galileo alone. Keep in mind, however, that many articles cited in Galileo databases are not available in full-text. Also, many online databases cover only the past fifteen to twenty years of journal literature. Older citations can be found in print indexes, many of which are antecedents of the databases found in Galileo.

Follow the instructions for placing an intercampus or interlibrary loan if you need to locate an article that is unavailable online.

SEARCHING GALILEO DATABASES

Keyword Searching

This is the simplest approach. You can search for every instance of a single word or phrase in the title, author, and abstract fields of thousands of article citations from many different periodicals.

Go to the Galileo home page at http://www.galileo.usg.edu.

Choose a periodical database appropriate to your topic. The databases are arranged by subject category; for example, databases that index periodicals in business-related disciplines can be found under the Business & Economics1 tab. Social science journals are indexed in those databases found under the Social Sciences2 tab.

Alternatively, you may search a general index, one which indexes periodicals in a wide variety of fields. These are found under the Need Information Fast graphic. More information on choosing databases may be found here.

Off-campus users must supply the current password. The password changes on March 24, June 27, September 12, and December 12 of each year. The current password is posted on your S.C.H.O.L.A.R. Portal Home Page.

After choosing an appropriate database, click on its name to begin your search. You will be taken to a search interface, which will look something like the illustration below. Note that the Business Source Premier Enhanced database has been used in this example. Although not every search interface will look exactly like that of Business Source Premier Enhanced, this one is fairly typical.

Click the basic search tab near the top of the search interface. Perform a keyword search by entering a word or series of words you would expect to find in the kind of article you are looking for. More guidance on keyword searching can be found in the Keyword Search and Boolean Search subsections of A Primer on Databases and Catalogs, a unit of Galileo's Online Library Learning Center tutorial.

After entering your search term(s), press the "enter" button on your keyboard or click "Search." You should see a list of search results like the one below.

After the results list appears, you may check the academic journals limit box. This will filter out many non-peer-reviewed articles. To assure that the journal in which your article was published is peer-reviewed, find it in the title index of Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, an authoritative source located in the reference section at R 016.05 Ul7p. A forward arrow (►) to the left of the name of the journal in the title index indicates that the journal is peer reviewed.

You may see one or several of the following icons under the resulting citations, depending on which database you choose. These indicate the levels of availability of the article, as described below.

• The abstract icon, when seen by itself, indicates that only an abstract, or summary, of the article is available in the present database. The full text of the article may, however, be available in another database.
• The HTML full-text icon signifies that a full-text version (typescript, without graphics) is available.
• The Adobe Acrobat icon means that a page image (photocopy, or .pdf file) of the article, just as it appeared in the original publication, may be obtained.
• The text-plus-graphics icon signals that charts, graphs, pictures, and other graphics included in an original article are available as supplements to a full-text version.
• The linked full-text icon means that full-text is available in another database. Click on it for further information about availability.

If the text of your chosen article is available, you may access it by clicking the blue-highlighted title or the appropriate icon. Also note that articles unavailable in one database may possibly be found in another. Use the Shorter E-Journals A-Z Web site to determine which database may provide full-text coverage for a particular publication.

Subject Searching

Searching Galileo databases by subject allows you to look through the contents of thousands of different periodicals for articles on your precise topic.

When you performed keyword searches, you might not have received sufficiently relevant results. Many articles you found may not have had anything to do with the topic you had in mind. This is because keyword searching only retrieves articles whose citations or abstracts contain certain words, rather than retrieving articles that are about certain topics. For example, a keyword search for "teamwork" might retrieve an article about baseball, since it is entirely possible (even likely) that such an article would have the word "teamwork" in it.

On the other hand, when you search a database using subject headings, you are looking for articles that are about a certain topic. Subject headings (also called subjects or descriptors), represent categories or concepts. They are something like a label on a file folder tab; they are unique terms under which all similar items in a filing system are located.

Follow these steps to find articles by subject.

Click the advanced search tab, then the subjects link.

Remember that subject headings are precise terms chosen by the person who indexes the database; they are not terms that database users would typically choose. To find the subject heading for the topic you have in mind, enter a term (preferably a single word) that describes the topic in the browse for box, then click the browse button.

You will be taken to a list of subject headings used by your chosen database. This list is known as the thesaurus. The thesaurus is arranged alphabetically, and will begin at the point at which your term is located. If the term you enter is not used by that database as a subject heading, you will see your term, then the word "use," followed by the correct subject heading.

Next, click the correct subject heading to be taken to the place in the thesaurus where it is located.

Your term should be first on the next list. To see all of the articles filed under that subject heading, place a check mark in the box to the left of the heading and click the add button. This will transfer the heading to the find box near the top of the screen. Finally, click the search button to the right of the find box.

If you have any further questions about searching in Galileo, please contact a librarian.

Browsing Journals by Title

Browsing is useful when you are not sure what you are looking for. If you need to find a current topic for a term paper, for example, or if you need to keep up with recent developments in your field, then browsing journals in your subject area is probably the best approach. For a highly selective list of Galileo's periodical holdings by subject, see the section, Best Journals, By Subject.

Browsing Journal Titles in Business Source Premier Enhanced, ProQuest Databases, and EBSCOhost Databases

Note that ProQuest and EBSCOhost are producers of databases, and each database produced by the respective companies shares a common search interface.

On the initial search screen, find the link to the publication search feature.

In Business Source Premier Enhanced, this is what the link looks like:

On the ProQuest interfaces (such as ABI/Inform Complete, ProQuest Newspapers, etc.) this is what the link looks like (note the orange highlighted tab):

On the EBSCOhost interfaces (such as Academic Search Premier, TOPICsearch, etc.), this is what the link looks like (note the depressed button on the green bar):

Follow the link to the publication search page, enter the title of the desired publication in the space provided, and click the browse button.

The results of your search should appear on the next search screen. If the journal you searched for is included in the database, it should be first24 on the list. If you do not find it, consult the Shorter e-Journals A-Z Web site to see if it might be found in another database.

Click the blue-highlighted title of the journal. This should take you to a page with a list of hyperlinked calendar years. Click the "+" sign next to the year to see issue numbers for that year.

Click a calendar date to see the contents of the journal issue that corresponds to that date.

Browsing the Wilson OmniFile: Full Text Mega Edition Database

The Wilson databases, produced by the H. W. Wilson Company, have yet another search interface.

Enter the title of the journal (27) you wish to browse in the box labeled, "Search For."

To the right of the "Search For" box, there is a drop-down menu (28) with the word "as" in front of it. Choose "Journal Name."

Find the drop-down box located to the right of the words, "Sort By." ( 29) Choose "Journal Issue."

Note the choices listed under "Limit Dates to" (directly under "Sort By" (30). To see all available issues of a journal, choose "Any Year". To see the most current issues, choose "Within last 12 months." Clicking the third button allows searching within a specific date range.

Click the "Start" button (31). All articles should be from the specified journal and should be arranged by date and by issue number.

*Part of the Database Offerings in GALILEO, Georgia's Virtual Library.