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Gerontology and Geriatrics

What is a Journal Article?

Many of your assignments will ask you to find a scholarly, peer reviewed, journal article. In general, scholarly and peer reviewed can be used interchangeably, but they both refer to a journal article. 

A scholarly, academic journal is a way for experts in a field or discipline to communicate professional findings, professional experience, and professional opinions. Experts write articles, following a specific format, submit it to the journal, which has a peer review team review the article for methodological quality, and then publishes the article after the article has been updated based on (multiple) peer reviews. The best way to find an academic, scholarly, peer reviewed, journal article is to use a database. 

You can learn more about reading a scholarly article in the below video. 

 

Databases

There are a number of suggested databases for Gerontology. For a full list of databases that might be helpful for your research, please see the Gerontology Databases page. 

Suggested Databases

CINAHL Plus with Full Text (EBSCO)

CINAHL Plus with Full Text [Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature] covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines. Journal articles, books and chapters, dissertations, conference proceedings, standards of practice, evidence-based care sheet and research Instruments are indexed from over 4,900 journals, and full text for over 760 titles. Coverage 1937- present. Updated 8/14/14

ERIC (EBSCO)

Gain immediate access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index with ERIC.

PsycINFO (EBSCO)

PsycINFO, from the American Psychological Association, contains over 2 million citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books and dissertations, in the area of psychology and related fields dating back to 1840. The database includes international material selected from thousand of journals in 24 languages, English-language book chapters and entire books in psychology and related fields. More than 9,900 journals on psychology and related fields are indexed and over 65,000 records added annually for a total of over 1.5 million records.

PubMed (NCBI)

PubMed indexes worldwide biomedical literature including research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services. Articles indexed from 5,663 journals and many serials and online books. Some full text. Subsets to PubMed Central (full text) and PubMed Health (for consumers). Coverage 1946- to present. Access: all. Produced by the National Library of Medicine. Updated 8/14/14

Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science)

The Social Sciences Citation Index is a multidisciplinary index to the journal literature of the social sciences.

Social Sciences Full Text (EBSCO)

Social Sciences Full Text™ provides access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals.

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1650 journals and other serials publications as well as conference papers, books, and dissertations. The database contains a total of 640,000 records. It is updated monthly and contains backfiles to 1963.

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a search engine that students are more comfortable with than the academic databases offered by the University Library. If you choose to use Google Scholar, please note that you are responsible for ensuring the materials you find on Google Scholar meet the criteria for being a scholarly, peer reviewed academic journal article. 

Below is a video on how to connect your google scholar to the University Library's database to ensure you have access to the materials collected in the search engine. 

Last Updated: Jul 26, 2023 3:05 PM