Types of Periodical Literature
Periodical articles are the preferred form of communication in many academic disciplines--especially in fields like science,
business, and politics where currency is very important. Periodicals are published much more frequently than books are and
authors can write and publish articles about specific topics much quicker than they can write full-length books.
Most people classify periodical literature into two main categories.
- Popular:
- Magazines written for the general public
Examples:
- Scholarly (or "Academic"):
- Journals about academic topics written by "experts in the field" for other "experts in the field" (journals written by doctors for other doctors, or written by scientists for other scientists, or written by historians for other historians, etc.). Many of the articles in scholarly journals present "primary information" (such as scientists presenting the results of their most recent experiment). Most scholarly journal articles are also "peer-reviewed" (reviewed and edited by other experts on that topic before they are published) to ensure quality.
Examples:
The above examples are pretty obvious but sometimes it's not so easy to tell the difference between a popular
magazine and an academic journal. For example, look at the two periodicals below. Can you tell just by looking
at the cover which is the academic journal?
Psychology Today is about an academic topic, psychology, but it is definitely a popular
magazine. The articles in it are very brief and written for the general public. There are more
pictures and advertisements than there is actual text. It's not the sort of periodical
that you would want to use as a reference in a college-level research paper.
And what about the following? Which do you think is the academic journal?
Civil War Times might be about a historical topic, but it is a popular magazine with
short articles and lots of pictures.
Unless you are writing a paper on a popular culture topic or a current event, you'll probably want to use scholarly journals rather than popular magazines.
To see more information on the difference between popular and scholarly topics go to the Evaluation Tutorial.
Formats of Periodical Literature
- Periodical literature can appear in many different formats:
- 1. Print: Print journals can be in two places:
- A. Current: In the Middleton Library, the most recent issues of ALL our journals,
magazines, and newspapers are kept in the Current Periodicals Room on the first floor
until they are no longer current.
- B. Older: When journals are no longer current, they are bound together into a hard-back volume ("bound
periodical") and shelved in the stacks on all the floors of the library depending on what their call
numbers are. This means that the bound periodicals will be on the shelf right next to the books in
the same subject area.
- There is no specific cut-off date that determines which issues are considered "current"
and which issues are considered "older." Each individual journal can have a different cut-off date.
In general though, "current" periodicals include the most recent year.
- 2. Microformat: If you've ever used microform before you know it's a bit of a headache to use. There
are, however, two reasons why older periodicals are transferred to microformat.
- A. Space: Microformat takes up less space and most libraries don't have any shelf space to spare. For example,
we have dozens of newspapers (such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) going all the way back to the
1850's! Can you imagine how much room that would take up if we had them in print format? We'd need a whole other
building!
- B. Preservation: Newspapers turn yellow and brittle when they get old and decompose pretty quickly. They're
put onto microform so that they will last a longer.
- Most microformat is kept in the basement in the Government Documents Room.
- 3. E-journals and Full-text Databases: Many journals are now available in electronic format and accessed through
the web. The LSU Libraries pay for access to them for LSU students, faculty, and staff. You can connect to them through the library's
webpage by choosing "Indexes and Databases."
Locations of Periodical Literature
Different issues of one particular periodical can appear in several different places. Newsweek, for example, is in four different places (and formats) in the Middleton Library. Some issues of it are:
- in print in the Current Periodicals Room
- in bound periodicals in the "stacks" (which are the rows of bookshelves on all floors of the library)
- on microfilm in the basement
- in a full-text database on the web
It all depends on which issue you need.
To figure out what format a journal is and where it is in the library, go to the
library catalog and do a "periodical title" search for the name of your journal.
For example, when you look up The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, the catalog gives you the following information:
- The first part tells you that we have some issues of this journal available online through a full-text database called
EBSCOHost EJS that you can connect to by clicking above on the words "Electronic Access: URL."
- The second part tells you that we have the print issues of this journal in two places:
- The current issues are in the Current Periodicals Room (just look for its call number)
- The older issues are available in the stacks (just look for its call number)
This information can be a little difficult to decipher sometimes, so if you ever have any questions just ask for help at the
Reference Desk.
Using Journal Indexes to Find Periodical Articles About a Particular Topic
The library catalog can tell you what journals we have and where they are in the library but they can't tell you anything about the articles inside of them. If you want to find articles about a particular topic you need to use a "journal index" instead. You simply look up your topic in a journal index and it gives you a list of "citations" about your topic. A citation is a couple of lines of information telling you exactly what articles talk about your topic. Each journal index is a little different but citations for journal articles usually appear in this order:
- Example:
- Often the names of the journals are abbreviated and you have to go to the Reference Desk and look in a book called
"Periodical Title Abbreviations" to see what the abbreviations stand for. In the citation above, for example,
the journal is abbreviated as "J Inter Stud World Aff." If you look it up at the Reference Desk you'll see
that it stands for "Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs" and you can then look it up in the
library catalog to see if the library has it.
Most journal indexes just give you citations like the one above. Some also give you "abstracts," which are short 2-3 sentence long summaries telling
you what the article is about. Some online journal indexes give you copies of entire journal articles; they're called
"full-text indexes."
The LSU Libraries have over three hundred different journal indexes! Many of them index articles in a particular field.
Some examples are:
- Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
- Bioengineering Abstracts
- Current Index to Criminal Justice Periodicals
- Animal Behavior Abstracts
Most of the print journal indexes are in the Reference Area on the first floor. The online journal indexes are available
through the LSU Libraries' webpage at http://www.lib.lsu.edu/databases/
Choosing the Right Journal Index
With over 300 journal indexes, it can be difficult to figure out which one to use. Here are some guidelines that show you
how to figure out which indexes are the best for the topic you're researching.
- 1. Go to the LSU Libraries' webpage (http://www.lib.lsu.edu)
and select "Indexes and Databases" from the "Research Tools" column.
- 2. Chose the appropriate subject area. Journal indexes are listed by subject so you need to figure out which subject area your topic falls under.
- Example: if you are looking for articles about "Shakespeare," you would choose
- "Arts and Humanities--Literature"
- Keep in mind that some topics may be cross-disciplinary. For example, if you're researching school busing,
you might want to look in legal indexes to research busing laws, you might want to look in educational indexes
to see how busing affects students' grades, and you might want to look in psychological indexes to see how busing
affects childrens' personality development.
- 3. When you click on your subject, you will see a list of the best indexes to use to
find articles in that subject area. There will probably be several different indexes listed--how do you
know which one to choose? Just click on their descriptions (the yellow circle in the "Info" column).
You'll see a brief description giving you more information about the index and what kinds of journals it
indexes. This information should help you determine which is the best index for your topic.
- 4. Select the best index and look up your topic using keyword searching techniques such as boolean operators,
truncation, and nesting. (For more information on keyword searching go to the library's
"Searching Techniques and Strategies" webpage)
- 5. If your index is a full-text database, you can print the articles out. If the full-text of your article isn't
available online, you'll need to look up the names of the journals in the library catalog to find out whether or not the library
has the journals in print format. Be sure to type in the name of the journals and NOT the names of the articles.
This is the most common mistake people make--but remember, the catalog only knows what journals we have, not what articles
are in them!
Search Techniques for Journal Indexes
All of the journal indexes are made by various commercial companies and each company has developed their own interface,
search capabilities, and designated search terms. This means that each index looks and works differently from the others.
It can be frustrating to library users but once you learn the basic methods of index searching you'll have an easy time
using any journal index. Here are some general guidelines to help you out.
- 1. Use keyword searching instead of subject searching.
- Each index has chosen its own set of predetermined subject headings. Unless you familiarize yourself
with the preferred vocabulary of the index you're using, you're better off doing a keyword search.
- 2. Learn your index's search commands.
- Each index also has chosen its own search symbols. Read the index's help file to figure out which symbols
to use for truncation, phrase searching, adjacency (proximity) searching, etc.
- 3. Try the advanced search mode.
- Most indexes have an advanced search mode which allows you to specify things like what dates, languages, and specific journals you'd like to search.
- 4. Choose more citations than you need.
- Remember, these indexes are made by commercial companies and index thousands
of journals. The LSU Libraries (or any library for that matter!) do not own
every single journal listed in the journal indexes.
- 5. Don't limit yourself to the full-text indexes.
- Full-text indexes are very convenient but they only index a fraction of the journals in any field.
Finding articles in periodicals can be a little confusing so here is a overview of the process.
Citing Articles in Full-Text Journal Indexes
When you quote from an article in your research paper you need to provide a citation stating where you got your information
from. There are several different ways to do this depending upon which style format your professor wants you to use.
MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian all have different formats. Footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography entries also have different
formats.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that when you cite from a full-text journal index you need to provide more information
than when you cite from a print resource. For example, if you cite an article from the "Journal of Environmental Health"
that you found through a full-text journal index, you need to provide more information than if you were
citing the same article in the print version of the journal. Depending on which style format you're using, you may
need to add:
- name of the journal index
- provider of the journal index
- URL
- date you accessed the article
- the database's accession number for the article
Examples:
- MLA Bibliography citation:
- John Smith, Mary Johnson, and Sally Green. "Migration Patterns of the Giant Tortoise."
Internation Journal of Evolutionary Science. Vol.253 Issue 4, 08/19/2001, 435.
Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. LSU Middleton Library, Baton Rouge. 15 April 2004. ‹http://web5.epnet.com›.
- APA Bibliography citation:
- Smith, John. (2001). Migration Patterns of the Giant Tortoise.
International Journal of Evolutionary Science 253 (4), 435. Retrieved April 15, 2004,
from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Premier).
Consult an up-to-date style manual to see what the proper citation format is. There are several online style guides
available at the LSU Libraries' homepage under "Ready Reference."
You can get more information on how to search for periodical articles at:
-
Searching Techniques and Strategies
- and
- Searching Academic Search Premier
