Finding Education Journal Articles Using databases from the MCCC library Martin Crabtree MCCC Library

Agenda Periodicals & Scholarly Journals Electronic Searching Techniques –Keywords & Boolean Searching Electronic Databases at Mercer –Accessing the databases –Education databases available at Mercer Giving credit to the author Your turn to use the databases

Periodicals Periodicals include: –scholarly journals –newspapers –magazines Periodicals represent the bulk of published scholarly information. The library has a number of periodicals available in print, on microfilm, and especially via electronic databases. The library staff can help determine if a specific periodical is available from the library.

So what makes a periodical scholarly?

The generic scholarly journal article Written for and by scholars in a particular field. Assumes you know the jargon of the discipline. Tends to be lengthy sometimes with charts and/or graphs (but rarely photographs). Has a bibliography

Strategies for Searching Electronic Databases And The Web Too

Starting An Electronic Search Keywords Keywords are used when searching databases. They are words that will likely appear within articles that are relevant to your search The search programming looks for only those articles that contain the keywords you supplied

Starting An Electronic Search Keywords The first step in a good search is to Generate a list of keywords. For example: –Ozone –Layer –Depletion –Atmosphere –Hole

Starting An Electronic Search Boolean Searching/Logic Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with the terms –and –not –or For example –eagles NOT football –(car or automobile) and exhaust More Terms = Fewer “Hits”

Searching More Than Just Keywords Phrases & Truncations To search for a phrase, use quotation marks –“early childhood education” Truncations allow for searching related words all at once –The * is usually used. For example: “child*” would include: child, children, childhood, childproof, etc.

Searching Electronic Databases beyond just keyword Field limiters allow you to specify your search within different parameters: –Only full-text articles –Only peer reviewed/scholarly journal publications –A date (or date range) –A specific periodical title (or source)

Databases Available at MCCC

Electronic Databases In General Accessible at any computer on the MCCC/JKC campus network. Most are available off campus, need use a password. Can print/ /download articles.

Accessing Databases Remotely You can access most of the databases from any computer with internet access. Use your student ID number (no dashes) and your last name to log into the databases. i.e. If you are already using an issued password and ID number, they are still valid too.

Remote Login Screen Use your student ID number & last name Use your previously issued User ID & password

Viewing the articles Not every article is available in full-text. When full-text is not available, an abstract (summary) is usually given. Full-text articles may be one of two formats, HTML and/or PDF. Need Acrobat Reader to view PDF articles.

Education Databases EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier –Broadest of the databases covering everything from science to the humanities. –Contains a number of scholarly journal articles from the field of education Proquest Education Journals –A collection of just educational periodicals Links are also at Dr. Reynolds homepage: –

NJ Core Curriculum Standards You can access the standards on line at:

Using the information you find...and giving credit where credit is due.

Using the Information You Find Always give credit to the author or creator of the information that you use. This includes not only the actual facts, conclusions, and ideas that an author presents but also the words that he/she has used.

Plagiarism can take many forms Plagiarism is the presenting of someone else’s intellectual work as your own. It may be done deliberately, but it may also be done without your realizing it. The copying, word for word, from a book or an article is the most blatant form of plagiarism.

Plagiarism when paraphrasing or writing a summary Incomplete paraphrasing or summarizing another’s work could cause plagiarizing without your realizing it. To prevent this, you should avoid:  Using the original sentence structure.  Simply substituting a few words here and there.  Using any of the author's key words or unusual words. Let’s look at an example...

Good paraphrasing It takes some effort to do a good job of paraphrasing. One helpful method is to: 1. Read the original sentence 2. Without looking at the sentence, try writing the idea of the sentence in your own words 3. Look back at the original sentence again to see it you haven’t used too much of the original language -Adapted from “Avoiding Plagiarism”, at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia webpage:

Giving credit using the APA format You will be using the APA (American Psychological Association) style. The latest APA manual is available in the library: –The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. at: BF76.7.p (in the reference collection & on reserve). The manual is not available on line. For more help with the APA style, go to: – (click on APA) –

Now it your turn to give it a try. Start by going to: or