Jackson State Community College -- COLLEGE SUCCESS - Library Research and Information Literacy
This guide will provide tips and guidelines as to how to successfully use your College library, find resources, evaluate your resources, and use them for your research work
Finding Information: What Resources are Available?
Now that you have defined your topic, decided what you need to know, and thought of keywords to help you in your search for information, you need to find information resources. The JSCC Library has many sources available to you:
How to Locate Journal, Magazine, and Newspaper Articles
Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers:
Jackson State Community College has some print journals, magazines, and newspapers, but we are taking fewer of these resources in print format because we can subscribe to so many hundreds more journal titles by buying electronic formats. These electronic journals are indexed in Databases, and are often in full-text and include graphics, charts, and photographs.
Databasesare purchased through vendors. The vendors create, update, and maintain the Databases, and are always developing new means of allowing users to search and refine their searches in the Databases.
In order to find journal or magazine articles in full-text online, go to the JSCC Library website, look at the box titled "Find Resources," and click into the link within that box titled,Journal Articles.
If you are looking for a newspaper article, click into the link in the "Resources" box titled,Find Newspaper Articles.
Type in keywords in a database of your selection in any of the journal or newspaper databases and you will -- if successful in your search -- retrieve a list of articles. Often you will be able to limit your search; this means that you will be able to narrow your search in any given database, according to the limits available in that database. The most common limits included in databases are:
> Peer-Reviewed
Sometimes Peer-Reviewed is called, 'Refereed' or 'Scholarly Journals.' This limit is used so that only scholastic journals are retrieved; no general interest magazines, such as Time, Newsweek, or Sports Illustrated
> Full-Text
This limit is used in order to be certain that the results of the search yield full-text online articles
> Date
This limit is used to see to it that articles retrieved in a search are published within the date range specified by the searcher
NOTE: You can use the Databases on or off campus. Off campus, you will be required to provide your Netlogon username and password in order to get into the databases.
