Research Guides: GEOL 150: Radioactive Pollution: Finding Journal Articles

What is a Database?

What is a database?

The library databases contain journal articles and other scholarly information. Sometimes a database will contain the entire journal article, and sometimes it will only contain an abstract. Databases are searchable by subject, keyword, author, and more. They can be seen as the tool that you use to search and access scholarly publications, such as peer-reviewed journal articles.

Finding Journal Articles

Best Bets for GEOL 150

JSTOR
Multidisciplinary full-text journal articles from 1,500 major journals. Please note: In many cases, JSTOR does not include the most recent 3 to 5 years of these journals. Please use other databases to retrieve recent articles, especially for current events topics. Coverage: Varies by title. Access is available to 2007+ alumni; requires W&M userid and password.
Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles (including peer reviewed), books, book chapters, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage: 1887-present.
ProQuest
Collection of databases devoted to disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. See titles of individual databases for further information. Coverage: Varies by database.
Environment Complete
Agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, etc. Journal articles and books. Coverage: Varies by title.
GreenFILE
Human impact on the environment, including global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and recycling. Citations to scholarly and general interest journal articles, government documents, and reports. Coverage: 1913-present.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.
Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
ScienceDirect
Multidisciplinary sciences, with some humanities and social sciences. Journal articles. Coverage: 1995-present.

Searching

Need to do a more specific search in a database? See this video and this video for more informationon about searching databases by keyword.

Constructing a good search

Not finding anything?

Try a different database! You can find our full list of library databases on Swem's website.
Try different search terms! Not finding anything for 'Sugar'? What about 'Sucrose' or 'Glucose'?
Ask a librarian! You can make a research appointment for some one-on-one help, chat with us when the research desk is open, drop on by for a visit, or even shoot us an email. We love to help!

GEOL 150: Radioactive Pollution

Accessing Articles

How to Access Articles

Reading Journal Articles