Articles and Databases
Search the following databases to find relevant journal and magazine articles, reports, and dissertations. Find more databases at the Databases A-Z list.
- SocINDEX with Full TextSocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers.
- FusionFusion allows you to search, in one place, the majority of the library’s books, articles, videos, etc. It includes all the materials in our library catalog Ignacio, as well as the content of the majority of our many databases.
- JSTORFull text of older issues of journals. Access includes Arts & Sciences I-XV, Business I Collection, Health & General Sciences Collection, and the Life Sciences Collection.
- APA PsycInfoAPA PsycInfo is the American Psychological Association's renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations. It is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health, and contains over 3 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s, with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Ninety-nine percent of its content is peer-reviewed. Formerly called PsycINFO.
- HeinOnlineHeinOnline is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of more than 2,300 scholarly journals; U.S. Statutory materials; all of the world’s constitutions; all U.S. treaties; collections of classic treatises and presidential documents; access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase; and more.
- NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference ServiceEstablished in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide.
- Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981 is an archive index covering legal periodicals published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand between 1908 and 1981. Topics include criminal law, federal law, international law, medical law and more.
- PubMed
PubMed provides access to more than 23 million bibliographic citations primarily drawn from MEDLINE, as well as publisher-supplied citations, in-process and "ahead-of-print" citations.
- Chicano DatabaseChicano Database includes over 67,000 records from more than 2,400 journals and other resources including newspapers, books and book chapters. The database provides coverage dating back to the 1960s and selective indexing dating back to the early 1900s. Subject coverage includes art, bilingual education, education, labor, literature, mental health, law, poetry, politics and sociology.
- Education SourceEducation Source is designed to meet the needs of education students, professionals and policy makers. The collection includes full text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests.
- ERIC: Educational Resources Information CenterThe ERIC database, the world's largest source of education information, contains more than a million abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice. It also contains the complete text of more than 1600 ERIC Digests, two-page research syntheses, which are among the ERIC system's most popular offerings; approximately 100 new titles are produced each year.
- Google ScholarArticles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Click "more" below to customize Google Scholar to access USF library journal subscriptions.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses GlobalThe most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
- CQ ResearcherCQ Researcher provides award winning in-depth coverage of the most important issues of the day. Our reports are written by experienced journalists, footnoted and professionally fact-checked.
Newspaper Articles
- Access World NewsThrough nearly 7000 news sources, find diverse global, local, regional, and national perspectives on topics related to controversial issues, the environment, health, education, science, the arts, literature, business, economics, criminal justice, and more.
- Nexis UniReplaces LexisNexis Academic.
More than 15,000 news, business, and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. - Ethnic NewsWatchEthnic NewsWatch covers 1990 to present and includes newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The publications offer both national and regional coverage
Find Full-Text
If the full-text of an article is not available, click on to check options for finding the full-text, including requesting the article via Interlibrary Loan. Alternatively, you check if USF owns the journal by searching the Journal Finder by journal name. Learn how to use in this short video tutorial.
Find Articles Not at USF
If the library doesn't have access to the journal article you want, you can still get it through Interlibrary Loan. Use Illiad to request your items online. You may receive your item in anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Be sure to start your research early!
Database Search Tips
- Use Boolean operators connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results. The two basic boolean operators are: AND and OR.
- AND tells the database that ALL search terms must be present in the resulting records.
Example: prisoners AND family - OR increases your results, telling the database that ANY of your search terms can be present in the resulting records.
Example: ex-convicts OR ex-offenders
- AND tells the database that ALL search terms must be present in the resulting records.
- Use database “limit” options as needed. Most databases offer these options to limit your results:
- to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals
- by source type (magazines, newspapers, academic journals)
- by language (e.g., English)
- Broaden a search by using a truncation symbol with a search term. Most databases use the (*) symbol. For example, prison* retrieves prison, prisons, prisoner, prisoners.
- Use quotes around search words to force exact phrase searching. Example: "stand your ground"
This guide was first curated with care by Sherise Kimura, and is currently maintained by Nicky Andrews.