EBSCOhost offers a variety of databases that index journals, periodicals, and other resources from several different academic disciplines. These databases range from general reference collections to subject-specific databases such as business, education, and the humanities.
SAGE Journals Online provides full-text access to more than 450 peer-reviewed journals in business, humanities, social sciences and science.
Interdisciplinary database with academic journals and ebooks in the fields of social science, humanities, science, technology and medicine.
Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed journals contain literature that is written by experts in a particular field of study.
The three major types of journal articles included in such journals are: reports of empirical studies, review articles, and theoretical articles.
Such resources are essential when writing research papers because using scholarly resources for your research provides the backing of experts, which can make your argument stronger:
An empirical article is a research article that reports the results of a study that uses data derived from actual observation or experimentation. There are several different sections of reports of empirical studies relating to the different steps of the scientific method.
Review articles are further examinations of research that has already been published--they are secondary resources. A research review can describe a phenomenon, review an existing theory or present a new one. Whatever the kind of review, the goal is to organize, integrate, and evaluate previous research in order to clarify a particular problem or issue.
Theoretical articles are written to advance theory and they may include both empirical research and a review of research in order to elaborate the theoretical position.
Empirical research articles are published in scholarly or academic journals. These publications are sometimes referred to as “peer-reviewed,” “academic” or “refereed” publications. Examples of such publications include: Social Work Research, Mental Health Practice, and Journal of Substance Abuse. Empirical research articles are usually substantial in length (more than 1 or 2 pages) and include a bibliography or cited references section (usually at the end of the article). Subheadings are often used such as those listed below:
Abstract: A report of an empirical study includes an abstract that provides a very brief summary of the research.
Introduction: The introduction sets the research in a context, which provides a review of related research and develops the hypotheses for the research.
Method: The method section is a description of how the research was conducted, including who the participants were, the design of the study, what the participants did, and what measures were used.
Results: The results section describes the outcomes of the measures of the study.
Discussion: The discussion section contains the interpretations and implications of the study.
References: A references section contains information about the articles and books cited in the report.
