Journals are topic-specific and explore the current scholarly conversation in a given subject area. You can browse or search for electronic journals. From the HPU Libraries' homepage, under Resources, click Periodicals.
Databases contain searchable collections of articles published across many journals. You can view a complete list of our databases. From the HPU Libraries' homepage, under the search box, click View a List of Databases.
Subject Heading vs. Keyword Searching
Subject headings describe the content of each item in a database.
Keyword searching is how you typically search web search engines. Think of important words or phrases and type them in to get results.
Key Points
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Keywords
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vs. |
Subjects
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natural language words describe your topic - good to start with |
pre-defined "controlled vocabulary" words used to describe the content of each item (book, journal article) in a database |
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more flexible to search by - can combine together in many ways |
less flexible to search by - need to know the exact controlled vocabulary term |
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database looks for keywords anywhere in the record - not necessarily connected together |
database looks for subjects only in the subject heading or descriptor field, where the most relevant words appear |
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may yield too many or too few results |
if too many results - also uses subheadings to focus on one aspect of the broader subject |
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may yield many irrelevant results |
results usually very relevant to the topic |
Impact Factor is a measurement of academic journals by Thompson Scientific's ISI Web of Knowledge. It reflects the average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. Impact Factors are often used in academia as a way to rate journals value within a discipline. Below is a list of some of the top Political Science journals by Impact Factor.
Google Scholar also ranks academic journals using their own impact measurement system. Check out Google Scholar's current top-ranked journals.
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Not sure if a journal is peer-reviewed? Check Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.
