Scholarly Articles - COMM 230 | Communication Theory - Collins Memorial Library at University of Puget Sound

Subject Databases

CMMC incorporates the content of CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association) and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Penn State) along with numerous other journals in communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study to create a research and reference resource encompassing the breadth of the communication studies discipline.

CIOS (Communication Institute for Online Scholarship)
An information gateway for the communications field.
Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest)
Provides access to multiple databases covering the international literature in the social sciences, including politics, sociology, social services, anthropology, criminology and education.

Search Google Scholar

Google Scholar can be a powerful search tool, but it can be inconsistent in its coverage, so it is best if used for supplemental research.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Premier
A multidisciplinary database containing full text journal, magazine & newspaper articles, many from peer-reviewed titles. This scholarly collection covers information in nearly every area of academic study.
ProQuest Central
Covering more than 160 subject areas, ProQuest Central is a large aggregated database of periodical content. It features a diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.
JSTOR
An interdisciplinary journal archive. It includes archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.
Project MUSE
Interdisciplinary database includes books and articles from scholarly publishers with focus on humanities and social science.

Search Primo

Types of Sources: Popular and Scholarly

Scholarly sources present sophisticated, researched arguments using both primary and secondary sources and are written by experts. Journals are examples of scholarly sources.

Popular sources aim to inform or entertain and are intended for a general, non-specialized audience. In academic writing, popular sources most often are analyzed as primary sources. Magazines are examples of popular sources.

To determine the difference between these two types of sources, ask yourself:

Who reads them?
Who writes them?
Who decides what get published in them?
What's in them?
What do they look like?
When are they available?
What can you use them for?

Is it Scholarly?

Here are some general guidelines to identify scholarly articles.

Finding Full Text Articles

If you have a citation to an article and want to find the full text,use Primo's advanced search. Change the "any field" to title. Type the journal title and the material type to journals.

Journal example:

Tan, Chang. 2012. "Art for/of the Masses." Third Text 26, no. 2: 177-194.

Where's The Fulltext?

There are three methods for obtaining the actual articles you wish to read:

Method 1: In some databases, you will be able to link directly to the fulltext article. Look around, as different databases have different interfaces. Look for a link or buttons that says "Check for Full Text" or Download PDF or similar. If given the choice between a PDF or HTML version of the article, always choose the PDF format. This will give you an exact image, including page numbers, of the article as it appears in the paper journal.

Method 2: If a direct link to full text is not available, then look for a link that checks for fulltext in Primo Search to see if the library subscribes to the journal.

Method 3: Use Interlibrary Loan. See box below.

Collins Memorial Library

COMM 230 | Communication Theory

Guided Research Process

What's a secondary source?