Articles, Journals, Databases
Articles are published in journals, magazines, newspapers, and conference proceedings. Journals often publish multiple issues each year, and like newspapers and magazines, they have different articles each time.
Journals - and all the articles they have published - are collected into databases.
Databases are often subject-specific, so you have lots of journal articles about the same topic. Databases also have search engines that allow you to find individual articles, no matter what journal they are published in.
Books vs. Journals vs. Generative AI
Sources of information vary in credibility. Here's how to check:
Books: Whether written by a single author or an edited book with a different author for every chapter, these are generally not great to use for this class, because books are not peer-reviewed. BUT, if you find a book or book chapter on your topic and want to make a case to Dr. Almstrum that you should be able to use it, check the author to see if they have written scholarly articles on the topic. Also make sure the book is scholarly and not popular - it should have citations and be from a scholarly publisher.
Articles: Articles from scholarly/academic journals, especially those that are peer-reviewed - are the gold standard for your research, and you can filter for "Peer Reviewed" in Start Your Research. Because publishers and other scholars have vetted them, they're your best bet.
Generative AI: While programs like ChatGPT can scour the internet for information, it does not do a good job of distinguishing between credible and non-credible information. ALSO, it has a tendency to "hallucinate" and make up information and fake citations. While generative AI can help organize your thoughts, do not trust it for factual information!
Citation Confusion!
It can be hard to distinguish between citations for book chapters and citations for journal articles. Why?
- Many books are written by a single author - for example, J.R.R. Tolkien is the only author of The Hobbit.
- But many academic books are "edited books" - with different authors for each chapter, and editor(s) for the entire book.
- Which means it's easy to confuse them because the formatting is similar - both have a title in "quotes", and a title in italics.
How can you tell them apart? Here are some simple rules to follow:
- Check the title in italics. In IEEE, the title of a journal is usually abbreviated. The title of a book is not abbreviated.
- Check for editors after the italicized title. Edited books have editors listed right after the book title. Journal articles do not list editors.
Journal articles look like this:
[#] A. A. Author and B. B. Author, “Title of article in sentence case,” Usually Abbreviated Title of Jrnl in Title Case and Italics, vol. xxx, no. xxx, pp. starting page of article–ending page of article, Abbreviated Month and year published. Available: DOI or URL or Name of Database in Title Case
Edited book chapters look like this:
#] A. A. Author, “Title of chapter in sentence case,” in Title of Book in Title Case and Italics, B. B. Editor and C. C. Editor, Eds. Place of Publication: Publisher, year, pp. starting page of chapter–ending page of chapter.
Types of Periodicals (including Journals)
