When looking for academic journal articles you can use the 'everything' search in Library Search or search directly in the databases below, which we’ve selected as being most relevant to your subject area.
Databases are the best place to find academic journal articles as they offer advanced search tools, metric data, and export options for referencing. These databases also often provide access to information types such as conference papers, book chapters, review articles, trade magazines, and more. BrowZine can also be used to explore e-journal titles in your subject.
While most of our collection is now available digitally, some titles may only be accessible in print. You can find these journal titles using an ‘everything except articles’ search in Library Search.
You’ll also find links to essential reading for your programme in your module reading lists on Canvas.
Key Databases and E-journal Collections
Databases will either provide you with the full text of the journal or they will give you the bibliographic details of an article. Where full text is not available, look for the
link and follow this to see if we have the full text available via Library Search.
Subject databases
Subject databases are tailored to particular subject areas. They tend to use precise terminology relating to the subject area, making searches more accurate, and can include subject specific tools and features.
- British Education Index (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowBritish education Index (BEI) indexes education journals from 1975 onwards.
- Child Development & Adolescent Studies (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowChild Development & Adolescent Studies is today’s source for references to the current and historical literature related to growth and development of children through the age of 21. Book reviews and abstracts from hundreds of journals and a bibliography of thousands of technical reports, books, book chapters, theses and dissertations covering biomedical and social sciences worldwide are indexed.
- Education Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowCovers periodicals, books and yearbooks for a wide range of subject areas including adult education, comparative education, government funding, higher education, school administration, teacher evaluation
- Education Database (via ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowSupports the study and application of education across all levels of education, including early childhood education, primary and secondary education, and higher education. The database supports global study and research, including thousands of full-text journals, dissertations and other relevant sources.
- ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowThe world's most widely used index to educational-related literature, established in 1966. Over one million records of journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, and books.
- Child Development & Adolescent Studies (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowChild Development & Adolescent Studies is today’s source for references to the current and historical literature related to growth and development of children through the age of 21. Book reviews and abstracts from hundreds of journals and a bibliography of thousands of technical reports, books, book chapters, theses and dissertations covering biomedical and social sciences worldwide are indexed.
- CINAHL (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowOffering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, this database covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
- EMBASE This link opens in a new windowIs a major biomedical and pharmaceutical database indexing over 3,500 international journals in the following fields: drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, clinical and experimental human medicine, health policy and management, public health, occupational health, environmental health, drug dependence and abuse, psychiatry, forensic medicine, and biomedical engineering/instrumentation. There is selective coverage for nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, psychology, and alternative medicine. Approximately 375,000 records are added yearly.
- Medline (OVID) This link opens in a new windowThe key database for medicine and related disciplines The database indexes articles in medical, dental and biomedical journals. Its coverage includes approximately 5600 international journals. Medline indexes articles published since 1946 and is updated monthly.
- PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new windowProviding full text access to nearly 100 titles in the area of Psychology from the American Psychological Association with coverage from as early as 1894.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowCovers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines, including medicine, sociology and linguistics.
All databases should have a help section with tips and tricks on how to get the best out of using them, so do make yourself familiar with them. You also may find the following helpful:
- EBSCO Host supportVideo Tutorials of help and support. Useful when learning how to use the Historical Abstracts database.
- OVID supportHelp and support on how to use OVID medline, PsychInfo and Embase databases.
- ProQuest supportVideo tutorials of help and support. Useful when learning how to use 'ERIC' via ProQuest
- Scopus supportHelp and support on how to access and use Scopus.
- Web of Science helpVideo tutorials and guides.
Multidisciplinary databases
Much like Library Search, multidisciplinary databases cover a wide range of topics and are a great place to scope your search, or to use if your topic covers more than one subject area.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowScopus is a large, multidisciplinary database, which indexes peer reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and trade publications. It provides cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research and set up citation alerts. Other useful tools include citation overviews, author and affiliation searching, visual analysis of search results and a journal analyser and author identifier tools (if you are interested in publishing work).
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science is a multidisciplinary database, which indexes scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings. It provides cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research. Use citation reports to see citation activity and geographical trends and the ‘analyse results’ tool to identify trends and publication patterns.
Support and services
Explore further tools, guides and support from the Library.
