Education: Journals and articles (LibrarySearch)

Journals are a really useful source of information, but what are they and why should you use them?

At their most basic, they are academic magazines - full of articles by a range of people covering topics across a particular field of study or professional practice. These articles might report research, review the literature, consider best practice or present expert opinion. Journal articles are often the best place to find the most up-to-date information on a topic.

Most journals are accessed on-line, though we do have a few print journals in the library. You can find the details of journal articles through LibrarySearch or by using a database - see the databases page for more info on this.

• ​Login to LibrarySearch.
• Search for your chosen topic.
• Clicking the title of the article will give you an abstract (summary) of the article, which will help you decide whether to read the whole thing.
• Once you have found an article you want to read, click the blue View Online box for links through to the article.For some articles, you will need to "log in" to verify that you have access. DO NOT enter your university username/password unless your normal university login screen appears.
• You may need to click links saying "Institutional login" or similar, and you may need to search for the name of your university.
• Please contact your librarian if you are having a particular problem using LibrarySearch or accessing articles.

Make your searches more effective with these top tips:

• Consider alternative words for the topic you're searching for (eg teenagers, adolescents), as different authors will use different words.


• If you are searching for a phrase of two or more words, enclose them in quotation marks to ensure that you find the words together (eg "higher education", "forest school", "social constructivism").


• Always read the abstract of an article before printing or reading it - the abstract acts as a useful summary which will help you decide whether it's relevant to what you need.