Seven Steps to Effective Research

Step 4: Find Magazine Articles

Locating magazine articles on your topic is an effective way to find information about you topic, particularly for obtaining very up-to-date information about timely topics.

Things to remember when using magazine articles:

There are several ways to search for articles at Mesa Community College Library:

Magazines, Journals, Newspapers

When researching a topic it is important to locate information in current periodicals in addition to that found in books and media resources.

Current periodicals are used to find more recent information on the topic.

Periodicals include magazines, journals and newspapers. As you look for newspaper articles you will find articles from national newspapers like the New York Times or local newspapers like the Arizona Republic. Depending on your topic of research either level of newspaper will work.

When looking for journals and magazines it is important to know the differences between magazines and journals. Sometimes you need journals and sometimes magazines. Oftentimes the choices depend on instructor requirements.

Periodical Indexes

Print (paper) Indexes to Periodical Articles

When looking for periodical articles you should begin with a periodical index. A periodical index is an alphabetical listing by author and subject of bibliographic citations to periodical articles. You can do a subject search using these indexes and identify articles on your topic.

When you have found a citation to an article, you can use the citation to locate the periodical in which it appeared. You may find the periodical:

In the MCC Periodicals List. You can find a listing of the MCC Library periodical subscriptions on the MCC Library web site or in binders on the Reference Desk or the Periodical Indexes tables on the second floor.

In another Arizona Library Catalog. If MCC does not own the title an Interlibrary Loan request can be made or the librarian can help you determine which library owns the periodical.

Print indexes to journals, magazines and newspapers are located in the Periodical Indexes area on the second floor. Print indexes are the best resource for articles printed before 1980 , or events which occurred before 1980, which may not be covered in web-based databases.

List of Print Indexes at Mesa Community College

Web-Based Indexes to Periodical Articles

Web-based databases are like the print indexes but in digital form. They are acessed from the MCC Library web page under Periodicals.

You may perform an author, title, subject or keyword search to find citations, and locate the journal cited as described above.

In addition to citations, some indexes give more information about the articles. Some include abstracts (an abstract is a summary or description of the full article), and some include the full text of the article. If the article is available full-text, you may :

print the article by pressing the browser's Print button.

e-mail the article to your e-mail address.

copy all or part of the article and paste it into a word processed document and save to a disk.

On to Step 5