Library Guides: SCLA 102: Utopia, Heterotopia, Dystopia: Find Journal Articles

Article Databases--An Overview

The Purdue Library Catalog can be helpful in browsing books in the Purdue collection. The catalog also allows you to search for whole journal issues by performing a "Journal Search" and searching the journal title.

However, Article Databases are tools that enable library users to perform more sophisticated searches for scholarly literature. These databases are usually designed according to subject and can either simply index an article (or book chapter) or provide the article in full-text.

Tool Features

Subject-specific limiters to refine search results (e.g. education level, publication audience)
Peer-reviewed article limiter option
Controlled vocabulary determined by field experts to classify articles
Records providing bibliographic information for sources both within and outside Purdue
Folder creation capabilities for account holders

For guidance on different approaches to searching watch the following short video provided by Professor Heather Howard with Purdue's Parrish Library:

Creating a Search Strategy

Relevant Article Databases

America: History and Life
Index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Covers over 2,000 journals published worldwide. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.
JSTOR
Full-text digital archive of over 2600 scholarly journals, especially strong in Social Sciences, Humanities, Economics, and Mathematics.
Academic Search Complete
- This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a general academic index that indexes more than 8,200 magazines and journals from every academic discipline and provides the full-text of more than 4,600.

In addition, Academic Search Complete offers access to more than 75,000 videos from the Associated Press. Videos relevant to the search terms will appear in a carousel in the result list.

Journals on Communal Societies

Communal Societies
This publication contains peer-reviewed articles on communal groups past and present, with an emphasis on those in the United States.
American Communal Societies Quarterly
Includes scholarly articles and reprints of important historical documents.