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Environmental Studies Research Guide

Scholarly Journal Articles

What's a Journal? - Journals vs. Magazines from KapCC Library on Vimeo.

 

How do we know a source we've found is a scholarly journal article? Look for these clues:

  • written by scholars (with affiliations to universities or research institutions)
  • written for other scholars and students (and therefore difficult to read)
  • published in an academic journal with a peer-review process
    • Here are some examples:
      • Population and Environment
      • Human Ecology
      • International Journal of Environment
  • extensive references at the end

Most Useful

Also Useful

Tips Examples
Use keywords, not long search phrases

Instead of searching for "How does studying fire ecology help us better understand diversity maintenance and habitat structure?" break down your search into the main keywords:

fire ecology, diversity maintenance, habitat structure, ecosystems, biota

To get more focused results:

Use quotation marks (" ") to keep phrases together

Use AND to combine different keywords

 "fire ecology" AND "diversity maintenance"

To get broader results:

Use OR to combine similar/associated keywords

Truncate words that have a variety of endings with a *                                       

"fire ecology" AND (habitat or ecosystem)

 

ecolog* = ecology, ecologies, ecological
Look for ways to limit your search in the database You can often limit by type of article (scholarly and peer-reviewed) & year of publication