A scholarly journal publishes original research articles on current developments in a specific discipline or field of study (1). Scholarly journal articles are usually written by the persons who carried out the research and include a bibliography or list of works consulted. An abstract summarizes the content of the article.
A scholalry journal has issues or numbers published every month or at other intervals. Each year typically corresponds to a volume.
Most scholarly journals are peer-reviewed: critically examined by experts in the field before publication (2). You can use the Ulrich's Periodical Directory (see the box below) to learn more about journals you find.
Here is an example of a scholarly journal article record from a journal article database called PsycINFO (see box on opposite page):
You can get all of the information you need to cite this article from this database entry. Be sure to read the abstract before you decide whether the article may be useful or not. Click on the Get it! UTL link to get full-text.
1. Joan M. Reitz, "Journal," in Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science, (ABC - Clio, 2013), accessed November 4, 2013, http://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/odlis_jk.aspx#journal .
2. Joan M. Reitz, "Peer review" in Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science, (ABC - Clio, 2013), accessed November 4, 2013, http://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/odlis_p.aspx#peerreviewed
Here are some journals you may find informative:
Ulrich's Periodical directory allows you to see whether a journal in which you found and article is scholarly and peer-reviewed. Search for the title of the journal in Ulrich's
Click on the title to see information about the journal's audience and review style.
You can access scholarly journal articles by doing a search using the Articles tab on the Library Home Page:
The more specific your search, the better your results will be. That is why it is good to look through some of the books in the Reference on Perception tab in this guide to get research ideas.
The Articles tab is a good way to start, but searching specialized article databases is more exahaustive and efficient: You are looking through thousands of psychology or neuroscience journals at the same time!
With the new ALL search and ARTICLE search, it is easy to broaden your searches.
Other tools, like Article Finder, help you to find a specfific article for which you have the citation.
