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In most cases (except for textbooks), the Cornell Library has online journals, newspapers, magazines, ebooks and print books, or can get them for you at no charge to you! Access Anywhere can help you find it at Cornell, or Ask a Librarian.
How to Identify Scholarly Journal Articles
Evaluating the sources you find is a crucial step in the process of scholarly research. The questions you ask about books, periodical articles, or multimedia sources are similar whether you're looking at a citation to the item or have the item in hand.
Watch this video to learn how to identify scholarly journal articles.
Recommended Databases
Databases identify and locate articles published in magazines, journals and newspapers. Many databases also index essays, book chapters and monographs.
Some of the databases provide full-text coverage of journals, but if not, use the Get it! Cornell link or search the library catalog for the journal title (or book title). This will provide you with Cornell's holdings of the journal (in both print and electronic form).
- MLA International BibliographyThe premier scholarly bibliography covering languages, literatures, folklore, film and linguistics from all over the world. Online coverage back to 1926. Includes books, articles in books, and journal articles. Does not index book reviews.
- Performing Arts Periodicals DatabaseFormerly the International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) covers dance, film, television, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, broadcast arts, circus performance, comedy, storytelling, opera, pantomime, puppetry, and magic. Full text from 1999 onward.
- America: History & LifeAmerica: History and Life (AHL) is a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises over 530,000 bibliographic entries for periodicals dating back to 1954. Additional bibliographical entries are constantly added to the databases from editorial projects such as retrospective coverage of journals issues published prior to 1954.
- Humanities International IndexIndexes articles and books across the arts and humanities disciplines from a multitude of U.S. and international publications. HII also provides citations for original creative works including poems, fiction, photographs, paintings and illustrations. Many links to full text.
- JSTORJSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several hundred scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, music, ecology and botany, business, and other fields. It includes the following collections: Arts & sciences I, II and III, General science, Ecology and botany, Business, Language and literature.
- Project MUSESearchable database that provides access to the full text of journals and ebooks published by university presses in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. Covers such fields as literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and others.
- Music Index OnlineBibliographic database covering more than 725 international music periodicals from over 40 countries in 23 languages. Topics include every aspect of the classical and popular world of music, and are thoroughly categorized and organized according to the framework of an internal Subject List, which includes both Subject and Geographic headings. Covers all styles and genres of music. Cites book reviews, obituaries, new periodicals, and news and articles about music, musicians, and the music industry. Selected coverage before 1973. Coverage: 1973 to present.
- RILM Abstracts of Music LiteratureExtensive collection of bibliographic records and abstracts focused on music reference and other music related fields. Offers international coverage of books, bibliographies, conference proceedings, catalogs, discographies, dissertations, ethnographic recordings, Festschriften, films, iconographies, and videos. Includes both the traditional RILM database from 1967 to the present and the RILM Retrospective database for materials published prior to 1967.