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CA 300: Foundations of Communication Research: Articles and Databases

This guide is in support of CA 300.

Articles and Databases

A database is a collection of many different academic journals that can all be searched at once. Most academic journals use a peer-review process to review articles for quality before publication.

You search a database by creating a search query. Search queries use search terms and can have Boolean Operators and punctuation. Based off your search query, you will get a list of articles (and other resources) as results.

Google Scholar

You can use Google Scholar to find versions of articles that you can access for free or through USA Libraries. 

Make sure to be logged into your JagMail account on that browser, so Google Scholar will understand that you have access to USA Libraries. 

In Google Scholar, you can search by author, article title, or subject. 

  • Author - Be careful! Researchers can share the same name!
  • Title - Be careful! Articles can share the same name or have similar names. Book review articles will have the same name as the book.
  • Subject - Make a search with search terms and Boolean Operators.
    • (teenager OR child) AND (virtual influencer OR vtuber) AND (consumer behavior)
  1. Search Google Scholar. Find an article in which you are interested.Screenshot of Google Scholar search result
  2. Select the "Full-Text@USA" option below the article you want to read. You might need to click on the arrows to show this option. You may also see a PDF option to the side of the article's search result.
  3. If you do not have any accessible version, you can still try to request access to the article through Interlibrary Loan.

What's in a Search?

Databases do not understand questions like Google can.

Databases talk through search queries. 

Search queries are combinations of search terms, Boolean Operators, and punctuation.

  • Search terms
    • Break your research question down into individual words or small phrases.
  • Boolean Operators
    • Follow the Boolean Operators page.
  • Punctuation Marks
    • " " - Quotation marks means you want that exact phrase to be searched. Not all databases follow this.
      • "Carnegie Library" - you only get resources that have "Carnegie Library" exactly.
    • ? - Truncation/Wildcard symbol. Tells the database to substitute any letter there.
      • bibliograph? = bibliography, bibliographies, bibliographic...
      • read? = read, reading, reader, readmit, readdress...

Searching for Articles Video