HELP: Definitions Relative to Articles & Databases
- "Periodicals"
are publications that come out on a regular basis (i.e., periodically)
more than daily--such as weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.
They have articles written by various authors. Magazines and
journals are the main types of periodicals. Although
"periodicals" does not apply to daily publications, newspapers are often
lumped in with periodicals as regards inclusion in some electronic
databases of articles, or location in a library.
- "Magazines,"
Journals," Refereed Publications": An assignment may
require you to use "journals" rather than "magazines." As the
descriptions below indicate, the terms "journal" and "refereed
publication" are essentially synonymous. Some of the databases allow you
to limit your search to "refereed publications."
- "Magazines" are generally popular
publications with lots of photographs and advertising. They may
inform, but they are primarily intended to entertain and to sell
products for advertisers. Authors of articles are not necessarily
experts and their sources of information usually are not cited.
- Journals are aimed at scholarly
and professional audiences, such as sociologists and accountants, and
employ the technical vocabulary of these audiences. They tend to have
few or no advertisements, but any advertisements they do have are
aimed at their expert audiences (e.g. an ad for an anti-cholesterol
drug in a medical journal). Articles in journals usually cite their
sources, lists of which can be lengthy. Most journals are "refereed
publications." (See below.)
- "Refereed Publications" are
periodicals that have expert boards of editors ("referees") who review
articles before publication. These reviewers are "peers" or experts in
the same field as the writer and help ensure that the articles meet
professional or scholarly standards.
- "Full text" means the entire
article is available online; you may print or download the article.
- A "citation" is not the full
text. Rather, it provides information about an article: author, title,
publication name, page(s), etc. If you are interested in an article for
which you find only a citation, you
may check:
-
the list of OCC
Online Journals to see if another
database has the full-text, and
- the
Library Catalog to see if the print
publication in which it appears is owned by an OCC library. (Do a
"Journal/Magazine Title" search.) OCC Libraries subscribe to well over a
thousand print magazines, journals, and newspapers.
- An "abstract" is a summary of an
article. As with a citation (above), if the full text does not accompany
the abstract, you may check the
Library Catalog to see whether the
print publication is available in an OCC library.
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