Finding Periodical Information

How the Information Cycle Works

To understand how to find information in periodicals, it helps to understand how information flows from idea to dissemination. The publication cycle starts with scholars' informal research, presentations at conferences, publication in journals, indexing, and repackaging in books and/or encyclopedias. Scholarly and popular journals present the same research in different ways, and the articles are listed in various publications by indexing and abstracting services.
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Info Flow

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The Flow of Information
(From UCLA Libraries)


In the beginning there was an idea...

Scholarly research begins at a place we can't generally see - the "Invisible College," a loose network of information activity and sources that are generally unavailable to the public. Ideas are generated, often by a solitary researcher, and then discussed in the “invisible college." "Membership" is largely dependent on personal communications and often initiated by meetings or conferences. The Internet has greatly expanded the size and number of invisible colleges. 
Source: Feather, John and Paul Sturges, eds. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. New York: Routledge, 1997. 

During the research process scholars gather and discuss information and ideas behind the scenes using many different methods:

  • Email
  • Electronic discussion lists
  • Telephone conversations
  • Informal conversations
  • Research logs/files
  • Personal journals

The flow continues through several steps toward dissemination:

  • Primary and/or secondary research
  • Informal presentation of results
  • Conference paper / conference proceedings
  • Journal article
  • Book or dissertation
  • Review article
  • Article indexed and abstracted in Citation indexes
  • Ideas widely accepted and “canonized” in an encyclopedia, handbook, or textbook. 

Libraries are responsible for acquiring, organizing, and preserving knowledge in order to make it available to future researchers. 

To do this, they must acquire general periodicals, scholarly journals, books, and the indexes/abstracts/databases and other tools that make access to the information possible. 

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Source: http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/mmolloy/lsc311/infocy.html

Publication Cycle

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Another way to look at how information moves from idea to dissemination following a publication cycle:

An example:

 

Professor Smith, a Nobel prize-winning economist produces an analysis of the characteristics of unemployment in the “information economy.” Please do the best you can to put in order, from first to last, the following “events” in the information cycle.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects and publishes monthly statistics on unemployment on their web site at http://stats.bls.gov/.

Professor Smith analyzes data from the BLS, using his computer to generate statistical reports. 

Professor Smith discusses contacts a number his colleagues around the country by telephone and e-mail and they discuss with him possible interpretations of his data. 

Professor Smith drafts a working paper and posts it on the web in the Economics Working Paper Archive.

Professor Smith presents a version of his research at the American Economics Association annual conference.

Professor Smith’s conference paper is published in the official conference proceedings.

Professor Smith’s research is published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, a scholarly journal.
EconLit, an online index to published research in the field of economics, indexes an article by Professor Smith that appeared in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Professor Smith’s theory is mentioned in an introductory college macroeconomics textbook.

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Periodical Types


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Scholarly or Popular?
Tips on telling the difference


TYPES OF PERIODICALS

What is a periodical?
A periodical is a publication appearing at regular and fixed intervals of time (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even annually) under a distinctive title. Its contents are usually some mixture of articles, reviews, stories, or other writings by several contributors. 
Source: Feather, John and Paul Sturges, eds. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Why use periodical information?
Students engaging in college-level research are generally expected to make use of articles from periodicals because they contain current information. This is important for all disciplines, but especially for the sciences and the social sciences. 

What kinds of periodicals are there, and why is it important to be able to tell the difference?
The quality and characteristics of the information found in periodicals varies. You will often be asked to find information from a particular type of periodical, for example, a refereed scholarly journal. The criteria in the table below will help you to judge for yourself what kind of periodical you have found. 

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Types of Periodicals — How to Tell the Difference

The following are broad guidelines and should not be taken as “rules.”
 

 

Popular Magazines

Professional, Trade, or Special Interest Periodicals

Scholarly/ Academic Journals (often “refereed” or "peer reviewed")

Purpose Designed to entertain or persuade readers with a variety of general interest topics in broad subject fields. Also geared to sell products and services through advertising. Examine problems or concerns in a particular profession or industry. Provide specialized information to a wide, interested audience. To inform, report, or make available original research or experimentation in a specific field or discipline to the rest of the scholarly world.
Audience Educated but non-expert reader. Use simple language in order to meet minimum education level. Practitioners of a particular profession, trade, or industry. Language appropriate for an educated readership and assumes a certain level of specialized knowledge.  Scholars and researchers in the field, discipline, or specialty. Language contains terminology/jargon of the discipline. Reader is assumed to have a scholarly background.
Title May have “magazine” or popular words in the title, e.g. BusinessWoman Magazine, Mother Jones, People Weekly. Sometimes has “news” in the title, e.g. Metal Construction News, AAUP News. Titles tend to be short and practical, e.g. Beverage World or Hotel Business.  May have “journal”, “bulletin”, or “review” in the title, e.g. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, International Review of Hydrobiology.
Frequency May have “magazine” or popular words in the title, e.g. BusinessWoman Magazine, Mother Jones, People Weekly. Sometimes has “news” in the title, e.g. Metal Construction News, AAUP News. Titles tend to be short and practical, e.g. Beverage World or Hotel Business.  May have “journal”, “bulletin”, or “review” in the title, e.g. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, International Review of Hydrobiology.
Tone Slick, glossy, attractive. Slick, glossy, attractive. Serious.
Layout/Design Glossy paper, photos, illustrations, cartoons, sidebars. Glossy paper, photos, illustrations, cartoons, sidebars. Plain matte paper, tables, figures, charts. Little or no color or illustrations.
Advertising Many ads for general consumer products and services. Many ads for products and services related to a particular trade or industry. Few or no ads. If any, they're for other journals or specific services or products.
Article Authors Frequently one author. Often staff-written or written by freelance authors or guest contributors.  Frequently one author. Often staff-written or written by freelance authors, guest contributors or professionals in the field. Scholars and researchers in the field, discipline, or specialty. Frequently has co-authors.
Article Titles Popular or catchy-sounding article titles.  Straightforward article titles, sometimes popular and catchy-sounding. Articles have a research-sounding title; nothing catchy, often long. 
Article Abstracts Articles do not have an abstract at the beginning.  Articles do not have an abstract at the beginning. Articles often have an abstract at the beginning to summarize the article.
Article References Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles.  Usually do not cite sources. No references or bibliography at end of articles. Sources for each article are cited  in footnotes or bibliographies .
Article Length Articles usually shorter. Articles usually shorter. Longer articles (more than three pages) including abstracts, footnotes.
Periodical Availability Easily found on a newsstand or magazine store. Rarely found on a newsstand. Need subscription or library access.  Not found on a newsstand. Need subscription or library access. 
Examples Glamour, People Weekly, Reader’s Digest, Newsweek. Beverage World, Restaurant News, Advertising Age. Science, JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Assoc., Academy of Management Journal, Psychological Bulletin

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Indexes

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PERIODICAL INDEXES AND ABSTRACTING SERVICES

What is a periodical index?
A periodical index is a subject index to articles that appear in a specified group of periodicals. Its purpose is to help researchers identify useful articles on a topic that may be scattered throughout a number of different periodicals. In addition to access by subject, access by article author is frequently provided. In the electronic environment, access points increase to include publication title, article type, article text, and other specialized access points.

What is a periodical abstracting service?
Abstracting services are the same as periodical indexes, except that each record also contains an abstract, or a short overview of the article. Abstracts can help the researcher decide whether or not the article is worth reading. 

How are indexes and abstracting services different from library catalogs?
A library catalog can tell you whether or not a specific library subscribes to a specific periodical. The catalog will tell you which issues of the periodical the library owns and where to find it in the library. However, a catalog cannot tell you what articles appeared in the periodical — just as the catalog can tell you that the library owns a cookbook called Recipes from India but can't tell you whether or not the book contains a recipe for lamb curry. 

Furthermore, periodical indexes have no relation to the library's collection. When you find references to articles using an index, there is no guarantee that your library subscribes to the periodicals you identified. Libraries make their own catalogs, but they purchase indexes from various publishers. These indexes are general in nature and are not customized to match the library's collection. So after identifying articles in an index, you always need to check the catalog to see if the library owns the periodical. 
 

Indexes and Abstracting Services

Library catalogs

· Produced by outside publishers and sold to the library. · Produced by the library itself.
· Provides access and describes the contents of (i.e. the articles in) a particular periodical or set of periodicals, usually periodicals in the same subject area.  · Provides access to and describes the contents of a collection — more precisely, the materials in a specific library's collection or in the collection of a specific group of libraries (i.e. HELIN). 
· There is no connection between the periodicals indexed and the periodicals to which any particular library subscribes. · A library catalog provides access only to materials in the library's collection. Note that the catalog can tell you whether or not the library subscribes to a certain periodical, but CANNOT tell you what articles have appeared in the periodical. (That's why we need a periodical index in the first place.) 
· Help you identify articles on a topic · Answers the question of whether or not the library owns the periodicals containing the articles identified
  • Example: Use an index or reference database (such as The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature or Research Library) to identify an article about workplace violence in the periodical Business Week. 
 · Example: Use a catalog (such as the HELIN library catalog) to see whether the library subscribes to Business Week and owns the particular issue you need. Note the call number, retrieve the article from the library shelves, and photocopy it to use in your research.

To write a major paper, you would want a list of at least 10 citations to articles, especially since URI might not have all the periodicals that you wrote down. You can see that research is a very long and sometimes tedious process. You really can't just push a button and have everything you need pop up on your screen. You need to take it slowly and allocate significant time to finding the information you need. 

Fortunately, it is faster now than it used to be, because most of these indexes are computerized, although print indexes are still needed for older material. 

Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
The Reader's Guide has indexed articles since the early 20th Century and covers mostly popular, but also some scholarly periodicals. Articles can be found by looking for the subject or author and the citation for each article is given. Issues are published monthly and then are bound into yearly volumes. To search for articles over several years, you must look through each year's volume.

A sample from the March 2001 issue of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature:

Subject Specific Indexes

Some subject specific indexes

  • Applied Science & Technology Index
  • Art Index
  • Biological & Agricultural Index
  • Business Periodicals Index
  • General Science Index
  • Humanities Index
  • Index Medicus
  • Social Sciences Index

 

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 This course was developed by Joanna Burkhardt, Mary MacDonald  and Andrée Rathemacher and was adapted for online use by Jim Kinnie as part of the URI Libraries Plan for Information Literacy - http://www.uri.edu/library/instruction_services/infolitplan.html

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Page last updated on Thursday, August 08, 2002