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Research Skills: Finding Journal Articles

A step-by-step approach to ensure that you possess the key skills required to find, retrieve and evaluate information on your research topic.

Introduction

There are many ways to find journals articles in the Library:

  • Summon (the Library's Discovery Tool)
  • The library’s electronic databases are the primary source for finding electronic journal articles. However, not all articles will be available in full text.
  • To find out if the specific article you need is available in electronic format, you should use the journal name and search for it in the ePublication Finder. 
  • Linking Google Scholar to the Unisa Library

Summon

  • Open Summon
  • In the All Fields blocks, enter your keywords
  • Decide on your Publication Date by clicking on the relevant years or enter a date range
  • Under Refine Search tick the boxes, Full Text Online; Scholarly & Peer Reviewed and Open Access
  • Use the bar under under Content Type Filter and tick the box next to Journal Article
  • You can limit further to Discipline if you want
  • Click on Search
  • A list of articles based on your keywords will appear.
  • Click on Quick Look to view the full abstract
  • Click on the PDF to open the article.
  • Article Page usually takes you to the front page as it will appear in the database

Items can be saved by placing them into the Save Item Folder next to every article

Items can be e-mailed individually using the envelope icon or if  they the saved option has been used, a number of them can be e-mailed directly from the main saved folder (look for the saved folder on the top right hand side of the page next to English)

Individual items can be exported directly to certain Reference Management Tools (e.g. RefWorks) by clicking on the set of dots (ellipsis) or going through the main saved folder.

 

Finding South African/ African Articles

Sabinet African Journals is the most comprehensive database of South African and African publications. Another database with is very useful is African Journals Online but free registration is required. Most databases however has South African content. To search for these you can use the keyword "South Africa" to retrieve them.

Search the e-Publication Finder

The e-Publication finder can be used when you know the name of a publication. Enter the name of the journal, e-book etc in the Title begins with search box and then click on Search.

The results will bring out the journal and in which databases it is held. This allows you to search the journal for more articles by using the relevant database. Otherwise just insert the the title of the article within the search inside this journal search box to go directly to the article.

E-Publication Finder

Using the Unisa e-Publication Finder

The e-Publicationl Finder allows you to search for a specific electronic journal or an electronic article. Use the e-Publication Finder only when you are looking for a specific journal title, or if you have a specific reference to an article.

Remember, the Library’s collection of electronic databases is the primary resource for finding information related to your topic based on your keywords.

The e-Publication Finder link is available from the Library homepage .

 

Google Scholar

By linking the library holdings to Google Scholar, you will be able to see the availability without having to pay.

Steps:

  • Open Google Scholar
  • Click on Settings
  • Click on Library Links
  • In the search box, type in UNISA and then search
  • Tick the Boxes associated with University of South Africa
  • Click on Save

When you perform a search after this, the UNISA Library link will appear next to items that the Library subscribes to. Click on UNISA Library to access the full-text.

 

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Search