Article Lookup
Journal locator To check if the BCIT library has the journal where the full text of an article is, follow the steps below: 1. In the search box below, enter the title of the journal the article is published in (not the article title). Click search. 2. If BCIT has the journal, check the date range (make sure it matches the year your article was published in) and click on the appropriate link. 3. Once you are in the journal, locate a search box (it's different for every journal), copy & paste the title of the article. Click search. 4. If the full-text of the article is not available in a BCIT database use thebutton (it appears in the result list of your search, next to the citation/abstract), or request for interlibrary loan. |
Databases can be discipline specific (such as MEDLINE), or multidisciplinary (such as Academic Search Complete). Many contain full text material, some only the reference and abstract.
Resist the temptation to limit your initial search to full text only, unless you absolutely need the article immediately. You may miss citations for appropriate articles not found in that database but could be found through one of our other databases.
Find more databases by browsing the database list by subject. Health Sciences databases.
Start your research with these recommended databases:
It is a good place to start your research.
See below how to set up Google Scholar settings to find items held by the BCIT Library .
PubMed: interactive tutorial: Get the full text for an article (2 min. video) -- you can now link back to the BCIT Library resources or request for Interlibrary loan from PubMed. Look for thebutton, on the top right.
Using PubMed in Evidence-Based Practice Training Course
Want to stay current on environmental and occupational health issues? Looking for a journal to browse for topic ideas? Try some of these:
BCIT Environmental Public Health Journal: articles are written by students from the BCIT Environmental Public Health program. 2014 to present
Search for more BCIT ejournals here.
Journals contain collections of articles and are generally published on a regular basis (e.g. issues are released monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly etc.). They can be found via the Library databases link.
Journals are the primary medium for scholarly communication. They:
There are different types of of journals. Not all journals are suitable for your assignments.
Types of journal articles |
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Peer-reviewed |
Original research |
Original research is a primary resource. These articles often include an introduction, methods, results and discussion sections. |
Review articles |
Review articles are secondary resources. They provide a comprehensive summary of research on a certain topic and often have an extensive list of references. |
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Not peer-reviewed |
Editorials |
In a scholarly publication, the editorial summarises the contributions in the publication, providing a balance between opinion and synthesis. |
Book reviews |
Book reviews are written by scholars and provide a summary of a newly published book. |
A publication in which all articles go through a peer-review process performed by subject experts before being published. You find peer reviewed articles by searching different databases. You can find a selection of databases in this guide.
P.S. When searching for peer reviewed journals from a database, select the "peer reviewed" or "peer reviewed & academic" limiters in the database you are using to ensure that only journals that have a peer reviewed policy for at least one kind of article are returned.
What is the peer-review process more exactly? Watch the video from North Carolina State University to get a clear understanding:
"Scholarly" sources are
Most (but not all) scholarly publications are peer reviewed or refereed by external reviewers.
Primary and Secondary sources
Sources are: print, electronic or visual materials necessary for your research.
Sources are classified into primary, secondary and tertiary.
Research question:
"What were Edgar Allan Poe's views on love"
Primary sources:
To know for sure what Poe's views are, we need to get as close to the original source (himself) as possible. His own writings, then, are primary sources.
Note: A source can be considered a primary source if it was created during a particular time, and it is documenting the "contemporary thinking" of that period.
If we're using the above research question about Poe, then books, biographies, and articles about Edgar Allan Poe written by anyone other than himself would be considered secondary sources because the information would be entirely second-hand.
A good way to think of it is: If your information has been processed (analyzed, interpreted, summarized) by another researcher then it's a secondary source.
Read UBC Primary Sources for definitions and examples.
Forward reference searching is when a researcher identifies articles that cite an original article or work after it had been published. This type of search focuses on the publications created after an an article's publication.