Finding PeerReviewed Articles in Education

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Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles in Education

• Education 371
• Language Development Literacy Instruction
• Charlotte Johnson Jones
• Reference Social Sciences Librarian
• Simpson Library
• Spring 2007

• Review
• The differences among peer-reviewed or
  professional education journals and education
  magazines
• How to find peer-reviewed articles in Education
  Full Text using a modified Pearl Gathering/1,2,3
  search strategy
• Learn
• About ERIC, the Education Resources Information
  Center

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Peer-reviewed journals
Accessed through Oxford Reference Online Premium,
January 29, 2007
Peer-reviewed journals may also be called
scholarly or academic.
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Scholarly vs. Popular

• Education periodicals dont always fit strict
  distinctions between scholarly and popular that
  may apply in other academic disciplines.
• There are many education magazines that could be
  classified as popular.
• There are many peer-reviewed education journals
  that are clearly scholarly.
• There are some professional education
  journalsfor example Phi Delta Kappan--that cover
  the same sort of research topics as peer-reviewed
  education journals, but they are not identified
  as peer-reviewed in databases like Education Full
  Text.
• Not sure about a specific periodical? Ask your
  professor.

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Some examplesof education periodicals

• Peer Reviewed Education Journals
• American Educational Research Journal
• Harvard Educational Review
• The Journal of Educational Research
• A Professional Education Journal
• Phi Delta Kappan
• Education Magazines
• Education Digest
• Instructor
• The Mailbox

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Education Full Text

• Contains information about articles in more than
  500 peer-reviewed education journals,
  professional education journals, and education
  magazines
• Contains citations and/or abstracts for all
  articles plus full text of many

From the Education Research Guide on the UMW
Libraries site http//www.library.umw.edu choose
Databases ? Education Full Text.
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Pearl Gathering/ 1, 2, 3

• A three-step search strategy that works in
  almost all library catalogs and databases
• Do a keyword search
• Find a pearl an article that is exactly what
  you need
• Follow subject headings in the record about the
  pearl to find more like it
• A new feature in Education Full-Text
  automatically mines the results of a keyword
  search for subject headings and makes them easy
  to follow. This makes pearl gathering in EFT
  essentially a two-step process. You can skip Step
  2.

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Pearl gathering in Education Full Text

• Objective To find peer reviewed articles about
  emerging literacy and phonological awareness.
• Step 1 Perform an All Smart-Search for emerging
  literacy AND phonological awareness.
  All-Smart Search is a specialized keyword search
  in Education Full Text.
• Tip Use quotation marks to keep phrases together
  in searching

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Step 2 Follow Subject Headings to find more
articles like these
Subject headings are the categories that
Education Full Text assigns to an article based
on content. Notice we searched for emerging
literacy but Education Full Text uses the subject
heading Emergent literacy. Click on the subject
heading link to see all the articles about
emergent literacy.
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Notice the results
Notice there are 367 results for the subject
Emergent literacy. Notice that EFT has mined
these results and found that some of them have
the subject heading Phonological awareness. Click
on it.
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Whoa! 639 results for Phonological Awareness! And
how do I know which of these are also about
Emergent literacy?
Use the Search History to combine searches.
Click on the button.
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Use the Search Builderto combine two or more
searches
Choose the searches you want to combine add them
one-by-one to a new search using the Addgt button.
Notice how complicated the syntax is to tell the
database to search for Emergent literacy as a
subject heading. Arent you glad you dont have
to come up with that? Thank goodness for Search
History and Search Builder. Click Submit.
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These look promising!
There are 32 results and they are right on topic.
Peer Reviewed
Notice the mortarboard icons. These are peer
reviewed journals. See something you like that
looks scholarly or professional but that doesnt
display the mortarboard? Ask your professor if
its okay to use it.
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To Get Articlesfrom Education Full Text
Not available in Education Full Text? Click
Locate Article (UMW) to launch an automatic
search for online copies of this article and/or
to find the journal in other Simpson Library
formats, such as paper, microfiche, or microfilm.
Click this icon to see full text without graphs
or graphics.
Click this icon to open an Adobe Acrobat PDF
version.
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Locate Journal ArticleOpens a Pop-Up with Options
The message University of Mary Washington
Print/Microform Holdings indicates that the
article is available in print, microfilm, or
microfiche in one of the UMW Libraries. Click the
link, then type the title of the journal into
the basic catalog search box to find out where.
Make sure to allow pop-ups!!
The citation is at the top.
First choice? The article is available online
through several other UMW databases.
Last resort Interlibrary Loan
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ERIC

• Education Resources Information Center
• Free Web-based database leading to education
  articles, reports, and other materials
• Contents are also available on many subscription
  platforms that may have special search features
• Produced by the U.S. Department of Education
• Begun in 1960s
• Mission and focus have changed dramatically under
  the Bush administration

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ERIC on the Webopens on a Basic Search screen
Begin with a keyword search. Put phrases in
quotation marks.
Change to Advanced Search
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Notice the Publication Types
Advanced Search allows you to easily enter more
than one key concept at a time.
You can limit your results to certain types of
publications. For now, lets look at everything
that is available.
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Notice the EJ and ED numbers
An ED number indicates that this is record is
about an ERIC Document, which may be a book, a
teacher guide, a report, a policy paper, or a
similar education related material. Some Eric
Documents are available in full-text online.
An EJ number means ERIC Journal article.
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Note the peer-review information
ERIC indicates if articles are peer-reviewed.
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Use the Journal Finderto locate articles
UMW Libraries home page at http//www.umw.edu/libr
ary
Journal Finder
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Search for the title of the journal
Search for the title of the journal not the title
of the article in the journal.