University help - Journal articles

[rooboy_90]

What exactly are "journal articles" and where can they be found. I have an essay due Monday and I am meant to use 8 of them. I don't even know what they are. And I am meant to use Book chapters. Obviously have to do a lot of work these next couple of days. But if someone can tell me what they are it may get me off to a better start ha.

Cheers

 

[RooBuoy]

Might want to have a look in the university library (if you've ever been to it). I'm sure there are plenty of journals there.

 

[rooboy_90]

Might want to have a look in the university library (if you've ever been to it). I'm sure there are plenty of journals there.

I think it is pretty obvious I havent

 

[Korn]

Journal articles are written in academic magazines.
look up in the university's journal database, it's online so u can do all your research at home.

 

[gilbeegurl]

Journal article databases are found on the website of your university library. They are usually categorised by subject so it is just a matter of typing in a few key words and finding relevant articles. You do need to be mindful that not all results will give you the full text of the article- in that case you will need to search for the hard copy (usually found in the library).

Good luck.
It may take you a while to find appropriate articles and it can be very boring to read thru them (they can be long).

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Im guessing this is your first year at university, im in my last year (4th) on a B Sc degree and you'll find you have to do a lot of research using Journal Articles mainly due to the fact that these are reliable sources.

Basically journal articles in science involve people doing research on a certain topic and then writing this research up in a similar format to what you would have done at high school in science subjects.

Abstract
Introduction
Methods + Materials
Results
Discussion
References

If someone wants an article published it has to be peer-reviewed before it is published in any journal, obviously some journals are better then others and therefore the reviewing process is stricter. This process looks for good experiemental design and whatnot, if the review is favourable then it might get published if the review is shit then bad luck, try again.

Im assumsing your doing a research assignment, or whatnot, if so you will mainly only look at the INTRODUCTION of a journal paper as this section contains background information on the topic which you can then reference and use in your assignment.

Also, each journal article will contain references from other journal articles which you can then either can a direct link to or search for. Therefore, finding 8 journal articles should not be that hard, should take 2 - 3 hours at the most, but more likely closer to 1 or 2.

Your uni should have a library homepage with links to databases. Take for example this page.

http://library.cqu.edu.au/cgi-bin/chameleon?skin=searchsmart

This page has a range of databases to search from

Science Direct and Blackwell Synergy are very good sites to search from and should allow you to easily find the articles you are looking.

You will need to either use a uni computer (if you have to do the work this weekend try and go to a 24 hour computer lab if you dont have internet at home) or you will need to have your student id and password to view these articles if your not at uni.

The main parts of the article you will use are the INTRODUCTION and the DISCUSSION, don't be scared off by the amount of information in each article but rather concentrate on these sections. Its not as hard as it looks.

The search terms you use are also important, try different terms and whatnot to get the best coverage.

Good Luck.