LibAnswers

1. We suggest you start your search with the database, Academic Search Premier (EBSCO).  You will be asked to login with your normal Western ID.
2. Type your search term into the search box and click Search to bring up a list of ALL articles - newspaper, magazine, and scholarly articles.
3. In the left column, find the box, Limit To, and check the Full Text (if it's not already checked) and Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. This will discard all the newspaper and magazine articles and keep only the scholarly articles. If you need only recent articles you can change the Publication Date filter as well. Explore more filters in the left column if you would like to narrow your search.
4. If that doesn't work, another good database for scholarly or peer-reviewed articles is Academic OneFile (Gale).
5. Again, you will type your search term into the search box. On the page of results you will see the term "Academic Journals." Gale uses the term "Academic Journals" instead of "Scholarly Journals." They mean the same thing. In the list of articles, notice the white checkmark in the black circle that signals the article is  "Peer-Reviewed."  You can use the Publication Date and other filters at the top right of the page to narrow your search.

For more information on database research check out our library guide, the Research Process at Western Library: Step by Step.  Check out our All Guides list for subject-specific guides.

If you need more help use our Live Chat feature that appears in the corner of most of our website pages or use the Ask a Librarian form.