Find a Specific Journal Article

Greetings! This page is best used in conjunction with module INF 101, section 3.

1. This time from the Library homepage, let's click on the Journals tab on the main search box.

2. Then, type the Journal title into the search box that appears.

3. If it's a journal we have access to, it will appear as a link in the results, like in the picture below. You'll want to go ahead and click on that link.

4. Now a new screen will appear. This will tell you if we have access to the journal online, in print, or if you'll need to request it through Interlibrary loan. For Social Science and Medicine, we have access to it online, through the database ScienceDirect.

5. Click on the second link, which covers dates up to the present. If there are several links, like you see here, first take a look at the date range, and make sure you choose one that covers present dates. If they all do, just start with the top option You will also be asked to sign in with your ID number and password before reaching the next page.

Now a quick warning: the exact pages you will see for the rest of these steps depend upon the journal you're looking at. The screen layout will vary based on the database through which we have access to the journal. In this example, it will be Science Direct (Elsevier) but there are a wide range of options. Don't worry! The steps are same, but links and items may be in different locations.

6. And here's the site for Social Science and Medicine:

  In some cases, you will see articles from the most recent volume/issue of the journal listed on the main page. That's great for if you're just interested in a subject and want to see what's currently being researched, but in our case, we're looking for a specific article. So, you'll want to find either a list of past volumes, a link to "View all issues" (like you see here), where you'll be given a list of links to past dates, or a search box where you can search through past issues. Sometimes this will be called the Archive.


For this article, we know we're looking for 2013, volume 88. First, I clicked on the "View all issues" link, as seen in the screenshot above. That took me to a list of past issues by date. I scrolled down until I saw 2013 - Volumes 76-99 and then I clicked on that. Then, I was given a list of links to each volume, I found Volume 88, and clicked once again.

This takes me to the list of articles from Volume 88. We're almost there!

All I need to do is look through the articles that appear, and before long, I find exactly the one I need:

Then, all I need to do is click on the link and I will see the full text of the article. From there I can download the article to my computer, print it out, or email it to myself to keep for later.