There are different ways to search for academic journal articles. Academic Search Complete and JSTOR are probably the two most popular academic databases for undergraduates doing research.
Subject-specific databases help limit your search to a specific discipline. These are especially helpful for upper-undergrads and graduate students.
Search It can help you access academic articles; however, it does not let you search with as much precision as more traditional journal databases. Watch out for book reviews too - they do not count as "academic articles" in most cases.
Google Scholar contains "non-academic" material such as newsletters, song lyrics, unpublished articles, and book excerpts from non-scholarly books.
Some of the major article indexes (Academic Search Complete, and JSTOR for example) will provide a link to the full text of articles right in the citation record by giving you either a .PDF or HTML link.
Many other times, you will not see a full text link to the article you want. In that case, you will need to look for the Find It button to locate electronic or print versions of your item, or perhaps order the item.
If you are using Google Scholar, you will not see the Find It button, but you will see a link that reads: "Find It at WSU Libraries."
If you cannot locate the full text of an article readily available on the page, the first step to accessing it is clicking on the "Find It" link.