Articles play an extremely important role in research, especially as more and more material is available electronically and open-access. Articles can be found in a variety of publications, including:
Your professor may require you use only scholarly or peer reviewed journals for your article sources. These materials have gone through a more rigorous examination by experts in the field before being published. Many databases allow you to limit by scholarly and peer reviewed.
Just as with books, some scholarly and peer-reviewed journals are considered to be of a higher caliber and this is often reflected in a journal's impact factor. Impact factor is determined by the yearly number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. Paying attention to impact factor can help you find more respected sources and core journals in your discipline. Some databases indicate a journal's impact factor; you can also check HERE to determine core journals in your discipline based on these metrics.
Provides in-depth reports on topics pertaining to current issues. Reports provide an overview, historical background, pro/con arguments, chronological information, and a bibliography of the topic. Includes legal, political, and social issues, communication and mass media, health, education, science, and technology from 1923 to present.
