Journal articles are a form of scholarly communication. Researchers use journals to share their work with others interested in the field. When your professors do research, they plan and execute it carefully, then they write up the results and insightful conclusions in a manner that is accepted, and expected, by others in the field. Example of journals are the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA).

Ideally the articles you need will be available in electronic format, but this is not always the case. If an article is not available electronically in a WCSU resource there are other options. One is to see if we have the article in a print journal/resource. Another is to order the article through interlibrary loan (ILL).

WCSU has access to several thousand journals and it is not usually practical to search on a journal by journal basis. It is more effective to search in a database, which is a collection of journals and possibly other types of publications (books, conference proceedings, reviews, etc.) However, there are situations when it is practical to go right to the journal, such as when you already know the article title or page numbers, or simply want to browse the latest volumes.

Databases provide a mechanism by which you can search for articles using search terms in a variety of fields. Search terms are usually text and may be in fields such as keywords, topic, abstract, title, subject, authors, publisher, date, and more. Most databases are similar in the way they operate, though they may name the fields differently (keyword vs. topic), and they often vary in visual appearance. Some databases provide access to the full text of the article, while some only provide information about the article, called the citation, such as title, author, journal title, and more, as well as an abstract (summary.)

Examples of databases are ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), PubMed, PsycINFO, and Academic Search Premier. They will find and display results for your search. Within the results it will tell you if the article is available in full text electronically. If so it can be downloaded, otherwise another manner must be found to obtain it, such as interlibrary loan (ILL). [It is possible to stipulate in the search to include only those articles that are available in full text.]

Searching Databases to locate Scholarly Journal Articles

• Also referred to as scholarly periodicals, peer-reviewed periodicals, refereed publications and professional literature. For graduate level research, it is appropriate to focus on retrieving research-based studies published in authoritative, peer-reviewed journals.
• Very often easy access is provided to either a "PDF" or "HTML" formatted full text of the article.  If these are not provided, select "Check for Availability Options" for more information. 

Best Databases for Clinical Mental Health Counseling Research

• For counseling topics/issues, search PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES databases.
• To search for measurement and evaluation instrument information and reviews, search the MMY (Buros Mental Measurements Yearbook), TIP (Tests in Print) and Hapi (Health and Psychosocial Instruments) databases through Ebsco.
• Be sure to use the Ebsco Combined Databases option to search several Ebsco Databases at one time! 

Best Databases for School Counseling and Educational Psychology Research

• For education research, best places to start include ERIC, Education Research Complete, and Academic Search Premier.
• For educational psychology topics, try PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES databases.
• Be sure to use the Ebsco Combined Databases option to search several Ebsco Databases at one time! 

Make sure to Limit your Search to Peer Reviewed Journal Articles!

• The ERIC database includes both ERIC non-peer reviewed documents ("EDs") and ERIC peer-reviewed journals and documents ("EJs").  Make sure to limit your search in ERIC by selecting the "peer reviewed" box.

Research on the Open Web

• Search Google Scholar to check if the article you need is posted online!