Research Guides: College Composition and Reading: Article Databases

General Article Databases

Academic OneFile Plus This link opens in a new window
PowerSearch the Gale Databases. News and peer-reviewed periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology and many general interest topics. Includes images, graphs, tables and illustrations.
Academic Search Premier Plus This link opens in a new window
Contains full text of thousands of publications, many peer reviewed. Multidisciplinary, including social sciences, humanities, education, computer science, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. Includes images, graphs, tables and illustrations.
CQ Researcher Online This link opens in a new window
Provides in-depth coverage of the most important issues of the day. A wide range of topics are covered, from social and political issues to environment, health, education, crime, climate change, public policy, and science and technology.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Full text and/or cited references to scholarly literature (articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions) from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites for virtually all subject areas. Resources available to Auraria Library users have a link labeled "Full-Text@Auraria Library".
Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Presents an array of perspectives on a wide range of topics using fully cited articles, essays, primary documents, biographies, statistics, court cases, profiles of government and special interest groups, websites, and podcasts. Topics cover politics, the environment, health care, education, energy, and much, much more.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Provides access to thousands of full-text journal articles and e-books related to science, technology, engineering, medicine, social social sciences, fine arts and humanities.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Massive collection of scholarly materials covers virtually all topic areas. Content, including articles, proceedings, and more, is pulled from various collections and is cross-searchable.

Tips for Searching Article Databases

Learning to use databases can be challenging...but fortunately, once you learn to use one database, your skills will help you use other databases. Use the tips below to search article databases effectively. Start by entering keywords into the search boxes and see what pops up!

Organize your research topic into concepts. Concepts are typically nouns or noun phrases. For example, if you are researching the effect of electric cars on the environment, your concepts might be:
- electric cars
- environment
Using the article databases listed on this page, enter each concept (and its synonyms) into a separate search line.
- "electric cars"
- environment*
Use quotes around phrases
Use * for truncation

environment* will find environment, environments, environmental

Limit to peer-reviewed articles IF your instructor asks you to.
Limit by date IF your professor requests articles from a specific date range.
Too many or too few results?

Run a new search using different terms. Try anything - you never know what might work!

Find an article that looks interesting?

Click on the article's title.
Read the abstract.
Look at the subjects or keywords and run additional searches using these terms.

Find the full text of an article by clicking on the HTML Full-Text, PDF Full-Text, or the 360 Link Check for Full Text button . The 360 Link...

Take you directly to the full text.
Take you to a page that indicates we have online full-text in a different database. Click the database link to access the article.
Take you to a page that says Auraria Library does not have online access to this journal volume/issue. On this page...

Click "Search Skyline by Journal Title" to determine if Auraria Library has the journal in PRINT form. This will search the library catalog for the JOURNAL title (not article title). You will need to determine if Auraria Library owns the year and volume of the journal that contains your article.

No print holdings? On the previous page, click "Request article via online Interlibrary Loan" and a PDF copy of the article will be emailed to you. You will need to create an Interlibrary Loan account before requesting material via Interlibrary Loan.