Legal Studies Research

Why Use Articles?

At the college level, most of your research will require academic or scholarly journal articles. What does that mean? 

Here are some characteristics of academic or scholarly journal articles:

• They are usually fairly short pieces, often between 1-20 pages long.
• They are written by researchers and professionals who are experts in their field and are intended for other scholars, researchers, faculty, and students.
• They are often trying to find out something new or unexplained in the field.  This is called "original research."
• Journal articles are often vetted through a peer-review process, meaning that the manuscript is reviewed by the authors' peers, who are also experts in the field.
• It can take months or years from the time of the research to the time of publication.
• Language is often formal and technical, using terminology that is specific to the field of study.
• The author's name and credentials will be present.
• References must be included, indicating where the author obtained the information.

Scholarly articles are often published in journals or periodicals.  Usually multiple articles are published in one issue of a periodical, and several issues of the periodical are published each year.  One year's worth of the periodical is called a volume.  Often the volume number corresponds to the number of the years the periodical has been published, e.g. volume 1 would be the first year's worth of issues.

Finding Articles and Journals via OneSearch

OneSearch is a tool that searches several of our databases at once.  You'll be able to find articles, books, ebooks, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and more by using OneSearch.

Finding Articles and Journals in Databases

Rather than OneSearch, some students search for articles via individual databases, which index thousands of journals all together. Using a single database is often easier because they return more specific results than OneSearch.

Here are some recommended databases that contain articles and journals in this field:

Finding a Specific Journal

The library has access to many different journal titles. You can find out if we have a specific journal by going to Find a Journal and searching by title.  Find a Journal is most helpful if you've already found information about a specific article (perhaps you found it online or your professor recommended it to you) and want to know if we have access to it through our databases.