Finding Full-text Articles by Subject

For education article research you will likely begin with ERIC or Education Research Complete databases and search on your topic. When you find a description (abstract) of the article you want to read, probably your next step will be to retrieve the full-text. First, look for a link that says "full-text". If you are looking at the details page it will be near the bottom of the screen.

Second, look for a link that says "360 link to full-text". If you click on this icon, it will begin a search through our many databases for the full article. The screen you get may include several options: 1) an "article" link that will take you to the specific article you need online; 2) a database link where you can access the database you can search for your article; 3) a link telling you to search Penfield Library, which takes you to the catalog to see what we have in paper version for your journal; 4) the note that we do not own this journal, with a link provided to request on Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

ILL is an excellent and convenient was to get articles (and books) that our library does not own either electronically or in paper. To register, or for more information, click to go to the ILL webpage.

Finding a Specific Journal

Many times you know about a specialized journal in your field, or have an exact journal article that you are looking for. You can check to see if it is in any of our databases by using our "Journals by Title" search page. If you have a particular date or article in mind, you will do that search within a database in the results list. If you want to browse, you will likely have the option of choosing an issue to explore.

Creating a Feed of Blog Postings

For any of you with feed readers, you may want to subscribe to this blog. To do so, click on the "Posts (Atom)" link below. This works better in some browsers than others, so as I learn more about this I will update you here.

Ask Your Question

I'm hoping that many of you SUNY Oswego researchers will ask questions of me, or your classmates and colleagues. Hopefully this will be a rich source of supplementary information on education research at Oswego. While it is not possible to include everyone on the list of contributors to this blog, you can all ask questions or leave answers and suggestions by using this procedure:

1. click on "comments" -- TO ASK A QUESTION -- please "comment" on this post by choosing the "comments" link. I will then move your question to a position visible on the first blog screen.

TO CONTRIBUTE AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION or offer your suggestions -- choose the "comments" link following the relevant question.

2. enter your text in the box provided

3. type in the letters that are displayed

4. choose "anonymous" (unless you have a google account)

5. wait for your comment to appear. All comments are first sent to me as moderator.

New APA Guidelines for Electronic Sources

APA has recently published new formatting guidelines for reference citations for electronic resources. There are several changes you will want to know about --

1. When you are using an article that is identical to paper (pdf format), you need only to note [electronic format] after the article title -- no url or database name required.
2. When the document you are citing is unlikely to change, e.g., journal article, you no longer need to list a retrieval date. (Internet sites are always changing -- so continue with those urls. )
3. To identify electronic articles the "DOI", digital object identifier, is now preferred to the url.

For more details and some examples, see the Penfield Library handout or the APA website information on electronic resource citations.