Use an article index to find journal articles on your topic. Articles are smaller in scope than books and can therefore focus on more particular aspects of a given topic. Since articles are faster to produce and publish, the most up-to-date research often appears in this form.
Some indexes and databases contain the full text of journal articles, but if the full text is not readily available, click the Get it@Queen's button.
Omni is the library’s academic search tool which provides a simultaneous search of the library’s holdings (print and online) from a single search box.
See our Omni Search Tips guide for detailed information on how to use Omni.
In addition to scholarly journal articles, many article indexes and databases include citations to book chapters, magazine articles, book reviews, etc. Typically, for research assignments, the expectation is that you should be using scholarly journal articles. Scholarly journal articles are also known as "peer reviewed" - meaning, they have gone through an anonymous formal vetting and editing process, unlike articles in magazines or newspapers which are accepted at the discretion of a single editor.
To restrict your search results to scholarly journal articles, look for this "limiter" in the database you are searching.
If your assignment permits non-scholarly sources (for example, recent articles from magazines such as Maclean's and newspapers such as the New York Times) consider using either a newspaper database such as the ones listed in the Newspaper Articles section of this guide.
Sociology:
Sociological Abstracts
Comprehensive index to the international literature in sociology and related disciplines.
Sociology @ ProQuest
Searches three databases: Sociological Abstracts, ProQuest Sociology, and IBSS: International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
Business
Business Source Premier
Political Studies
Political Studies @ ProQuest
Searches four databases simultaneously: PAIS, Worldwide Political Abstracts, ProQuest Political Science, and IBSS.
Geography
Geobase
The database for human and physical geography.
Multidisciplinary Databases
Academic Search Complete
A multidisciplinary index (with abstracts) to more than 10,000 publications including peer-reviewed journals, popular magazines, conference proceedings, monographs and reports.
Social Sciences @ ProQuest
Comprehensive coverage of literature published in the social sciences disciplines.
Web of Science
Includes Social Sciences Citation Index.
Google Scholar
Google's scholarly search engine. Google Scholar searches for scholarly materials including journal articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Because of the variety of sources that Google Scholar uses, not every result you’ll see is necessarily peer-reviewed. It is still important to evaluate the sources for credibility.
Enabling the Get it @ Queen's links
On campus: access to Queen's resources is available via Google Scholar.
Off-campus: access Google Scholar through the Queen's library link where you will have to enter your NetID and password or if you go to Google Scholar directly (https://scholar.google.ca) you will need to configure your Google Scholar preferences to allow automatic access to our Library subscriptions to journals and databases.
Scholar Preferences
Click on the Settings "gear" located in the upper right hand corner of the Google Scholar search page to view Scholar Preferences (choose Library Links and add Queen's University, Kingston - Get it at Queen's). Click save.