Journals (also known as periodicals, serials or magazines) are published on a regular basis, for example, daily (newspapers), weekly, monthly, quarterly or perhaps annually. As journal articles can be produced more quickly than the time it takes to publish an entire book, they are more up-to-date than books. Journal articles enable you to keep abreast of current issues and trends in your subject area.
Every journal is made up of several elements. Each publication year has a volume number and within every volume, there are multiple parts/issues - how many will depend on how frequently it is published. Each part/issue contains a number of individual articles.
The Library provides access to print and electronic journals. Note that printed journals cannot be borrowed from the library though you may photocopy articles for personal research purposes (within current copyright regulations).
If the Library holds a journal in print format, the complete year's issues may subsequently be bound together within hardback covers. If not, the loose issues will be stored (in issue number order) in a pamphlet box on the Journals shelves. 
If you want to quickly find journal articles on a topic for an essay or assignment, one of the best places to start is USearch. This Discovery Tool searches many of the individual library databases and electronic journals.
Having completed your search in USearch or one of our databases, what do you do if you can't access the article?
| 1. Do you need to complete the Athens log in? | |
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2. Have you refined the search using full text options to ensure all results are full text? When you have selected "Full Text" or "content I can access", the article should be found in our journal holdings.
** Note: limiting to 'Full-text' will remove any results not available as full text online. You may prefer to be aware of the existence of these articles and request them via Document Delivery. If so, leave the 'Full-text' box un-ticked. |
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| 3. Click on U Find it and other links to read the full text of the article |
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If directed to Google Scholar or the Library Catalogue it is likely that we do not hold the full text of the article. Check to see if the Library subscribes to the Journal in Electronic Journals and if still unsuccessful, search Google Scholar. The Library catalogue will provide details of Print Journal holdings in the Library |
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Still not found the article full text? You can request any journal articles that you don't find in the library holdings through Document Delivery. |
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If the item you want is not available from Ulster sources, the Library's Document Delivery service can request material from the British Library and elsewhere. |
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You may request books and articles using the Online Request Form Article requests will usually be sent to you electronically for download so register for British Library's On Demand service prior to requesting and read the guidance on Secure Electronic Delivery (SED). Book requests will be supplied as loans. There is no charge for either service, although weekly limits may apply. |
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A journal reference gives all the information needed to be able to locate a specific article in a journal or database.
Below is a typical journal reference (Harvard style):
Prince, M. (2012) On functional art. Art Monthly, 20 (360), 7-10.
This article was written by Mark Prince (author).
It is about functionalism in contemporary art and design.
You can find it in the 2012 year of Art Monthly (the journal title).
The volume is 20, the issue number is 380 and the article begins at page 7.
If you have a journal reference, you need find out if the library holds that journal. The simplest way is to search the Electronic Journals by journal title. If we have the journal, a link will be provided to the Database which contains it.
If it's not available online, it may be available in print on the Journals shelves in the library. Search the Library Catalogue by journal title or keyword from the title. At the results page click on Serial under for Format option to the left of the screen to filter out the journals from book titles.
Otherwise, use the Document Delivery service to request a copy of the article.
Not sure if we have the e-journal you need? Search our Electronic Journals by journal name to find out. If we have the journal, a link will be provided to the database which supplies it.
If we don't have the journal electronically, we may have it in print form on the Journals shelves - search the Library Catalogue for the Journal title.
Failing that, you can use the online Document Delivery service to request a copy of the article. A PDF copy of the article will be sent by the British Library within a matter of days for downloading purposes to your email address.
We recommend Google Scholar if you want to use a search engine to find journal articles or other high quality information. Scholar limits results to academic-related sources, such as peer reviewed journals, research based working papers or other scholarly resources. Take the steps below to link to full text sources held at Ulster and export any references to the Refworks database
Top tip: login to the Portal first - that will help with full text access off campus.
For more information about Google Scholar, including selection and ranking of results, citation metrics and search tips see: http://scholar.google.co.uk/intl/en/scholar/about.html
If you intend to use the 'normal' Google, check Settings for advanced search tips to improve the accuracy of your search. Northampton University also has a useful video - Ten Tips for Google Searching.
