Research on most any topic can be enriched by reading and investigating the scholarly literature. You have access to a rich body of academic writing, including peer-reviewed articles, through the library databases.

Scholarly articles generally offer and in-depth study of a narrow area of research. Even if you cannot find the "perfect" article that relates to your topic, research on a related area is still valuable and can be incorporated into your own investigation.

Which Database should I use?

Depending on your topic, you may have to search in more than one database, as you may not be able to "guess" which database will be the best for your topic. It is a good idea to search in more than one place and compare your results from database to database....

Some of the databases below include articles from popular sources, like magazines and newspapers. These databases allow you to limit your search to Academic/Scholarly sources. If you are not sure if the source you have is scholarly, you can look for the following elements in the paper:

• It might begin with an abstract, or summary
• The institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s) is (are) usually provided
• It concludes with a list of references, a bibliography, or a works cited