Finding electronic

journal articles

John Hynes– MBS Library ServiceJohn Hynes– MBS Library Service

Tel: 0161 275 6501

Email: john.hynes@manchester.ac.uk

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library

Introduction

Introduction to journals – JRUL journals

Download of a specific journal article

Introduction to literature searching (4 stages)

Bibliographic databases – Which should I use?

Bibliographic databases – How to search

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library

Academic (peer-reviewed) journals contain scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline.

Will present research findings, or provide critique / new interpretations of existing theories.

Introducing journals

There are 3 major types of journal “Academic” (often peer-reviewed), “Mass market” & “Trade”.

Internet has revolutionised production of and access to journal articles.

Journal articles are added to bibliographic databases as soon as they are published.

Article search

• We subscribe to over 41,000 individual journal titles

• Pay close attention to citation detail before accessing: All elements are important, but the JOURNAL TITLE is important, but the JOURNAL TITLE is key to locating an individual article:

Cuenda, Ana and Angel R. Nebreda. 2009. "p38[delta] and PKD1: Kinase Switches for Insulin Secretion." Cell 136(2):209-210.

• Use the A-Z listing of e-journal titles to locate the article: Follow the links from www.mbs.ac.uk/library

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library

Literature searching

Stage 1: Carefully define your research topic in terms of keywords.

Stage 2: Identify appropriate sources of information to run your search.run your search.

Stage 3: Search the information source(s).

Stage 4: Download relevant search results.

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Identifying keywords

Focus first of all on WHAT you are searching for…

Think about your research topic - Select 2 – 3 terms describe the subject you are focusing on.

e.g. - Economic downturn (Recession / Credit crunch)- UK (United Kingdom / Great Britain)- Retailing Industry (Retail* / shop* / High Street)

e.g.“Impact of the economic downturn on the UK Retailing industry”

Choosing an information source

• Subject specialist databases

• JSTOR

• Library Search

• Our bibliographic databases provide access to high quality (peer-review) articles from

leading business & management periodicals.

• They also provide you with advanced searching facilities which help you to retrieve more

relevant articles.

• Search engines such as Google Scholar will also return articles that we do not have access

to and /or direct you to wrong login point when off-campus.

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library

Search techniques

Use Boolean logic – (AND, OR & NOT)

• AND will link the terms to find only

articles that mention both concepts –

eg: tobacco AND advertising

• OR will broaden the search by looking

for synonyms, alternative spellings,

abbreviations and plurals –

eg: United Nations OR UN

• NOT can be used when you need to

narrow the search by excluding certain

keywords or concepts –

eg: industrial action NOT fire service

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library

Search techniques

Adding limiters to the search will reduce the number of results received, and also improve the relevance of those returned.

Restrict your text search to scan journal abstracts rather than full text.

Set date parameters for search e.g. 1/1/2007 – 31/10/2008.

Restrict search to certain publication types (e.g. academic journals) or to specific titles.

Use subject specific limiters such as the “company” field in B&M databases.

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/library