USING UNISA LIBRARY SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES PERSONAL

USING UNISA LIBRARY: SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES PERSONAL LIBRARIANS 2020

IMPORTANT JOURNALS Find out which are the influential journals in your subject/field and use them Ø as a way on interacting with members of your research community Ø to keep up-to-date with new trends and developments in your field Ø to read the work of important, established researchers in your field Try to include material from them in your research

IMPORTANT JOURNALS Different ways of establishing a journal’s importance Ø depended on the discipline/field Ø citations and impact factors may be decisive, but… Ø disciplinary conventions also apply Ø differentiation among disciplines e. g. Nature vs South African historical journal

JOURNAL IMPACT FACTORS Ø A journal’s impact factor or ranking is based on the number of times its articles are cited over a specific period Ø This establishes the journal’s reputation

LIBRARY’S HOMEPAGE

LIBRARY’S E-RESOURCES & A-Z LIST: J

LOGIN: STUDENT NO. & MYUNISA PASSWORD

JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS

JOURNAL IMPACT FACTOR

BROWSE JOURNALS BY CATEGORY

CATEGORIES BY RANK

JOURNALS BY RANK

TOP RANKED JOURNAL & ITS IMPACT FACTOR

FINDING JOURNAL ARTICLES: SUBJECT DATABASES Ø The databases are essential for finding material on your topic Ø The Unisa Library subscribes to subject databases for all academic disciplines Ø all registered students have access Ø and can use student number and my. Unisa password

Ø All contain bibliographic references to academic, peer-reviewed journal articles, theses, books, chapters in books and conference papers Ø Many also contain full-text articles which can be viewed, printed or downloaded

Ø Each subject database is slightly different but they all Ø use Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) to formulate a search strategy rather than your dissertation title Ø allow you to edit, refine, limit and mark your search results Ø allow you to print, e-mail or save your search results

Ø allow you to export them to an online bibliographic manager e. g. Ref. Works/Mendeley Ø allow you to register as an individual user so that you can personalise the database Ø allow you to set up author or search alerts • Access is via the library’s homepage Ø by using the library guides, or Ø the alphabetical list of electronic resources