CMNS 125, Professional Communication (Linda Howell): Finding Articles

Not all journals are created equal, and not all will be appropriate for every research need. Here are some characteristics of scholarly journals:

• the authors are researchers or scholars - articles will typically include the author's institutional affiliation;
• the articles reflect an-depth analysis of topics or report original research (theoretical, experimental or applied);
• articles are often lengthy, and book reviews, if included, are substantial;
• the language used reflects the technical vocabulary of the discipline (i.e., jargon); and
• many are refereed or peer-reviewed.

For more information and additional characteristics, see Types of Periodicals.

Books are rarely peer-reviewed, which can make it more challenging to determine scholarly status. However, the following are common characteristics of scholarly books:

• the authors or editors are researchers or scholars (you might need to look inside the book for information about the author, or you can try a Google search);
• the publisher is often a university press (e.g., Oxford University Press, University of California Press) or an academic society (e.g., American Anthropological Association); and/or
• the language used reflects the technical vocabulary of the discipline (i.e., jargon).

If you choose to do this topic, you might also want to look at these resources:

Using the Find It box above, search for the scholarly articles that you need for your assignment.

• Think about your topic and identify keywords.
• Don't use sentences.
• Start with some simple keywords or phrases
• Use AND to combine keywords (such as social media AND challenges)
• Use OR to combine similar concepts (such as universities OR colleges)
• Use truncation symbol * to retrieve results with variant endings. (such as ethic* will retrieve ethic, ethics, ethical)
• Do a phrase search using quotation marks (such as "intercultural communication")
• Results are sorted by relevancy but you can sort them by date
• Use the Subject search to improve your results
• Use the limiters on the left side to limit your search results
  • Peer-reviewed
  • Publication Date
  • Subject

Try these searches:

• (social media OR facebook or instagram OR twitter OR snapchat) AND (advantages or disadvantages)
• (Indigenous Peoples OR First Nations) AND economic empowerment AND Canada
• sustainability AND students and higher education
• intercultural communication and higher education and students
• workplace communication AND generation gap
• (higher education OR universities OR colleges) AND student activism

Use the tools within the database to Print, Email, Save or Cite your articles. You can send yourself an APA formatting reference. Cite option can also generate an APA style reference.

Here are some links to the major Canadian news media sources available through the UFV library, using your myUFV login. These links allow you to access articles behind paywalls, and browse online newspapers without seeing any advertisements. This is especially useful for news articles from The Globe and Mail; many are otherwise only available through paid subscriptions. You can also use Canadian Major Dailies to search for articles from major Canadian newspapers and CPI-Q (canadian Periodicals to search for Canadian focused journals, magazines, and newspapers (including local BC newspapers such as Abbotsford News and Chilliwack Progress).