Find Articles in Databases
Purge, Grant Hutchinson, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Databases can include:
- articles (from scholarly journals, popular magazines or newspapers),
- book citations
- film & images
- trade publications and more
Look for ways to limit your results.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowMultidisciplinary 1990-present. Includes scholarly journals and popular magazines.
- America History and Life This link opens in a new window Article abstracts and some full-text articles on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from the prehistoric era to the present, drawn from international periodicals from 1954 to the present.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window Provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy.
- PsycINFO (1872-Current) This link opens in a new window Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business and law. Journal coverage from 1887-present, current chapter and book coverage from 1987-present.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Provides abstracts of journal articles and citations of book reviews as well as abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Coverage dates from 1952 to the present.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Humanities and social sciences content since 1995. Includes peer-reviewed articles from university and scholarly society journals.
- Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window A bibliographic index of over 1,700 U.S. and international journals in the humanities, covering articles, essays, reviews, and creative work in poetry, fiction, and visual arts.
- Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 This link opens in a new window A bibliographic database of English-language journals in the humanities, social sciences, and related specializations such as anthropology, archaeology, and religious studies.
- Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowIncludes Essence, Good Housekeeping and other fully digitized women's magazines, which reveal evolving assumptions about gender roles, race and cultural mores. 1846-2005
- Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new windowMagazines outside mainstream presses. Topics include socialism, feminism, ecology and LGBT rights.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowPeriodicals of the American ethnic and minority press
- US Newsstream (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowArticles from newspapers across the U.S, 1980-present.
- Newspaper GuideFor more newspaper databases, check this guide.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar can be a great way to find scholarly articles, but be sure to also search Colby databases directly.
Advantages:
"Cited By" feature allows you to see has cited a book or article. More relevant sources!
If you're on campus or off-campus using VPN, there can be links to full-text articles within Colby databases.
Some authors have Google Scholar profiles.
Clicking on this symbol in Google Scholar, gets you a citation (but always check it).
Disadvantages:
Its collection of articles is limited, and it's not transparent what is and isn't included.
Like all web-based searches, evaluate the sources carefully. Investigate authors and publications separately.
Coachella by Thomas Hawk. 2014 (CC BY-NC 2.0) via Flickr
Identifying Scholarly Works
Scholarly articles and books are particularly important to college research. They:
- provide in-depth analysis or report original research
- use in-text citations and bibliographies
- are written by and for scholars
- are often peer-reviewed by other scholars
Search for scholarly articles in Colby databases, and look for options to limit your results to scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.
To identify scholarly books, look at the publisher, author, extent and quality of references, writing style and arguments presented. Who is the intended audience? How current is the material?
Search Tips
Owl, Vagmark at the Zoo, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
KEYWORD SEARCHES
- Scan relevant results for alternative search terms.
- Use an asterisk to stand in for multiple word endings: activis* (for activism, activists or activist)
- Use quotation marks to "glue together" a phrase: "social media"
- Use AND between terms to narrow results to items containing both terms: online AND shaming
- Using OR between items (within parenthesis) widens results: (youth OR teen* OR adolescen*)
SUBJECT SEARCHES
Use search results to identify Subject Terms. These links group material together by topic which can yield additional results.
Explore subject sub-headings. These can be helpful in topic exploration.
CITATION TRAILS
Check the notes, references and bibliographies of every relevant article or book. One good source can lead to another!
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowAfter checking a book or article's references, put its title in Google Scholar to see whom it was later cited by.
OneSearch
OneSearch searches multiple resources.
Use only for very precise searches
- Finding a specific article
- Finding book reviews for a specific book
- Finding articles or book chapters on lesser-known people or narrow topics
- Use limiters! E.g. journal articles, book chapters, book reviews
For topical searches, first consult CBBcat and subject area databases!
Databases and books are the best places to find scholarly material, but other great sources may be found on the open Web. Here are some tips for successful searching:
Search precisely - Add words and phrases that help to focus your search (e.g. "digital collections" to find primary sources). Experiment with alternative terms and phrasing. Scan reliable sources to find names of respected online publications and blogs and include those names in your search.
Use "Advanced Search" - On your Google search results page, click on Settings. The "Site or Domain" field can be useful in limiting your results to government information (.gov) or items created at educational institutions (.edu). Use the "Find Pages With" search boxes to finesse your search.
Use "Tools" - On your Google search results page, click on Tools > All Results > Verbatim. This can help focus your results. Limiting by date can get you items with greater currency. 
Evaluate Extremely Carefully! - Investigate every source by doing separate searches of source creators, authors and publications. With whom are you talking? What are their values and motivations? Are they getting their information from reliable sources and interpreting evidence fairly and intelligently? Who is the intended audience?
Know the Limitations of Web Searching - Most scholarly articles are either not found by search engines or are behind paywalls. Information is sorted and ranked according to commercial/consumer/popular considerations. Information is not vetted for accuracy or reliability
Find Books in CBBcat
SEARCH our library catalog
CBBcat includes both scholarly books and books intended for a general audience.
To order items from the Colby Annex, Bates or Bowdoin, click 
Not finding what you want in CBBcat? Use the link to MaineCat in your CBBcat search results. Or check WorldCat and order through ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service.
Librarian
Find Articles in a Specific Journal, Magazine or Newspaper
- New York Review of Books Literary-intellectual magazine founded in 1963.
- The New Yorker Opens to the current issue. To search or browse all issues, use the tabs at the bottom. (If you click on the New Yorker logo at top, it takes you out of the Colby subscription and to the website where you would encounter limits to access.)
Want to see if Colby has access to a particular magazine or journal? On the Colby Libraries home page click on the "Journals and Articles" tab. 
Once the orange bar has moved down, enter the publication's name in the search box. 
More Guides & Tutorials
Need to use these resources off campus?
For the most reliable access, install VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your computer or device.
Instructions are on the Colby VPN webpage: http://www.colby.edu/its/virtual-private-network-vpn/