What's the difference between an article, a journal, and a database?
Answer
When you type something into the FoxHunt search box on the Library’s home page, you’re searching across several databases, including the library’s catalog of books, e-books, and other materials, as well as individual databases the library subscribes to - for example, EBSCO, or ProQuest. Each database is a collection of sources - which may include books, films, government documents, articles, and lots of other types of sources. You can search for specific databases using the “Full Text Databases” search on the library’s home page.
One of the most common types of sources is a journal. This word may be used interchangeably in some places with periodical or serial, but basically, a journal is a publication that comes out in issues on a regular basis - for example, four times a year. An example is Feminist Economics. An issue of a journal contains individual articles. These are probably what you’re used to finding when you search for sources in FoxHunt or individual databases, but you usually find them detached from their particular journal issue.
A good research strategy can be to look for other articles in the same journal as an article you’ve already found. You can search for specific journals using the “Full Text Journals” search on the library’s home page.
If you need further help, contact a librarian.