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MESA Teachers' Research Guide

Engineering Librarian

Paula C Johnson's picture
Paula C Johnson
Contact:
Main Library A403
520-621-9862
Subjects:Engineering

TUTORIAL: How to distinguish a scholarly article from a popular one?

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. If there is a PDF of the documents listed, you will see the link on the right hand side of your screen.

Google Scholar tutorial

How to evaluate a source for reliability?

Databases
Databases are commercial products that bundle a variety of resources into a single, easily searchable interface. Database contents are primarily articles from scholarly journals, but include popular magazine and newspaper articles, and audio visual materials as well.

The state of Arizona provides free access to Arizona residents to several that may be used in STEM research. You will access these databases by entering your zip code.

  • Academic OneFile Gale’s premier periodical resource, Academic OneFile, provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning.
     
  • General OneFile This Gale general interest database includes reference, newspaper, and audio content that complements the resource's robust collection of magazines and journals.
     
  • Science in Context Provides contextual information on hundreds of today's most significant science topics, and includes millions of full-text articles that includes national and global publications as well as 200+ experiments, projects, and top reference content.

Students in Pima County may access other databases by having a library card and going to their nearest Pima County Public Library. Ask the librarian to help locate the databases.

If you are near the University of Arizona Library, or another large post-secondary school (for example, ASU) you can go to the library to access its databases on one of their public computers.