Definitions

Let's define some terms that you will need to know when you look at electronic databases.

• "Article": An article is a relatively short piece appearing in a periodical (see next definition) or newspaper.  It is non-fiction, meaning that it is not an imaginative work telling a story about made-up characters.  Rather, it deals with facts and/or opinions about a particular subject--i. e., it is an essay or report.
   
• "Periodical": A periodical is a publication that comes out on a regular basis  more than daily--such as weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.  Although most newspapers come out daily, they are often lumped in with periodicals (as in this tutorial).
  
• Journals vs. Magazines: These are two types of periodicals.  Journals are intended for academic or professional groups of readers, whereas magazines are meant for popular audiences.  Journals tend to have few or no advertisements, and their articles cite sources in footnotes, while magazines are advertising-driven and usually do not cite sources.
   
• "Full text": In electronic databases an article is described as "full text" when the entire text of the article is available right there on the computer screen.  The databases don't always contain the full text of articles; sometimes there are only citations.  See the next definition.
  
• "Citation": A citation is not the full text.  But a citation provides information about the article—author name, article title, periodical title, page numbers, date published, etc.  What good is a citation?  It enables you to look for an article in print form (using the library catalog) or in another database (that comes later in this tutorial).
  
• "Abstract": An abstract is a summary of an article that sometimes accompanies the full-text article or citation.  The abstract allows you to determine whether the article is worth reading.
  
• "Subject" and "Keyword" Searches: There are important differences between these two.  Please check the definitions of  subject search and keyword search in the glossary.  (While you're there, feel free to learn a little more about the other terms defined above.)
  
• "Embargo": In the world of electronic databases of periodicals this term refers to the practice of publishers whereby they hold back recent issues of the print version of their periodicals from electronic databases.  The reason is that the immediate release of the publications to electronic databases would reduce the sale of the print periodicals.  Periodicals can be held back for a period ranging from a week to over a year.  Each database usually provides information about the length of embargo for its publications.

Next we'll look in more detail at "Articles / Databases."