Finding Articles | Databases - Mathematics - LibGuides at Texas State University-San Marcos

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What is Scholarly | Peer-Reviewed?

Most libraries subscribe to various types of periodicals, such as scholarly (which may be peer-reviewed), popular, or trade publications. Choosing which to use depends on your topic, the type of writing you are doing, your assignment, and the sources your professor wants you to use. Many databases offer the option to limit to "Scholarly Journals" or "Peer Reviewed". If you're not sure if a journal is considered scholarly/peer-reviewed, check Ulrich's but looking up the title of the journal.

Characteristics of a scholarly journal:

Usually reports on research or reviews the literature
Language is often technical and specific to the subject
Articles will contain a list of references cited in the paper.
Authors are usually researchers or experts in their field
Has little or no advertising
May have charts and graphs
Scholarly journals may or may not be peer-reviewed (see below)

What is a peer-reviewed journal??

A scholarly journal is peer-reviewed when there is an editorial board that decides which articles should be included for publication. These journals are generally thought to be of the highest quality. To determine if a journal is peer reviewed, look for an editorial board in the early pages or on the journal's Web site.

Top Journals in Math Education

Educational Studies in Mathematics
Refereed articles reflecting the variety of research concerns within the field of mathematical education dealing with didactical, methodological and pedagogical subjects.
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
An official journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), JRME is the premier research journal in mathematics education and is devoted to the interests of teachers and researchers at all levels--preschool through college.
Journal of Mathematical Behavior
The Journal of Mathematical Behavior solicits original research on the learning and teaching of mathematics. We are interested especially in basic research, research that aims to clarify, in detail and depth, how mathematical ideas develop in learners.
For the Learning of Mathematics
The journal aims to stimulate reflection on mathematics education at all levels, and promote study of its practices and its theories: to generate productive discussion; to encourage enquiry and research; to promote criticism and evaluation of ideas and procedures current in the field.
Mathematical Thinking and Learning
The international mathematics education community is maturing at a rapid and exciting rate. Although this community has developed its own research perspectives and theoretical frameworks, it continues to expand its horizons by drawing upon new theories and research in mathematics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and information technology. Mathematical Thinking and Learning is directed at researchers interested in mathematics education from any of these perspectives, with a particular focus on mathematical thinking, reasoning, and learning.
Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education
The Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education (JMTE) is devoted to research that seeks to improve the education of mathematics teachers and develop teaching methods that better enable mathematics students to learn.
ZDM: Mathematics Education
ZDM is one of the oldest mathematics education research journals in publication. The journal surveys, discusses, and builds upon current research and theoretical-based perspectives in mathematics education.

For the full list of top-ranked journals in Mathematics Education, check out this article:

Journal Quality in Mathematics Education
Williams, S. R., & Leatham, K. R. (2017). Journal Quality in Mathematics Education. Journal For Research In Mathematics Education, 48(4), 369-396.

Suggested Research Databases

Consult the Mathematics Databases page for a comprehensive list of databases related to Mathematics.

American Mathematical Society Journals

Education Source | ERIC

These two databases are particularly helpful for research in Mathematics Education

General Science Full Text

MathSciNet
For advanced Mathematics research, MathSciNet cannot be beat for its organization, authority, breadth, and depth. If you find something on MathSciNet which is not full-text, come back to another database to search for it - but start at MathSciNet.
more...less...
MathSciNet is a database of reviews, abstracts and bibliographic information for much of the mathematical sciences literature. Authors are uniquely identified (by their MR Author ID), enabling a search for publications by individual author rather than by name which may not be unique. Expert professional mathematicians write reviews of the current published literature; over 80,000 reviews are added to the database each year. MathSciNet® contains almost 3 million items and over 1.7 million direct links to original articles. Bibliographic data from retrodigitized articles dates back to the early 1800s. Reference lists are collected and matched internally from approximately 550 journals, and citation data for journals, authors, articles and reviews is provided. This web of citations allows users to track the history and influence of research publications in the mathematical sciences.
ERIC
For Mathematics Education, History, or even undergraduate Mathematics research ERIC, an education disciplinary database, is a great tool.
Journals of the American Mathematical Society
Includes Conformal Geometry and Dynamics, Journal of the AMS, Mathematics of Computation, Proceedings of the AMS, Quarterly of Applied Mathematics, Representation Theory, Transactions of the AMS, Transactions of the Moscow Mathematical Society, Memoirs of the AMS, Notices of the AMS, Bulletin of the AMS, Abstracts of the AMS, and several open access journals.

Finding Obscure Citations

Trouble finding an article? Try these tips...

1. Get the full journal title: Many citations will abbreviate a journal title. Make sure you have the full title. Honestly, there are a lot of resources out there for finding full titles from abbreviations, but for the most obscure Google comes in handy here.

2. Make sure you have the RIGHT title: Many journals have similar names. Check all the other details in your citation. Is the publisher the same? Are the volume details right (example: if the citation says Fall 2004, but the journal you've found is published monthly, you may have the wrong journal).

3. Search for the journal in our Periodical List.

4. If you find the journal listed, click on "Full Text Access" to see your options of accessing the item on campus or through the library's website.

5. If the journal isn't in the Periodical List, or the years you need aren't available there, put in an InterLibrary Loan. It generally takes less than a few days to have it scanned from another library and emailed to you.

Periodical List

Periodical List
You can search for a specific journal/magazine/newspaper title using Periodical List.

LinkSource checks our other databases to find a copy of your article in one of our other databases. Sometimes you'll see this image:

| Citation Management |

Have a lot of citations you want to enter in your works cited/references list? Try a citation manager.

Do you need the Web or Desktop version?

EndNote
A citation management tool that enables you to:

Organize your research Include citations while you write your paper
Build a bibliography in a variety of formats
Import references from library databases and Google Scholar.

Mathematics: Finding Articles | Databases