Articles - REL 120 | Religious Diversity in America - LibGuides at Lebanon Valley College

Find Articles

Where you should search depends upon your topic. Best database for religion is ATLA Religion Database.

If you want to focus on the sociological aspects of religion, try Social Sciences Full Text.

Searching for the political aspects of a religion? Political Science Complete is where you should begin.

Interested in the history of religion? Try America: History and Life, a database that covers American history.

Image Source: Eanger Irving Couse. Native American Smoke Ceremony. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

ATLA Religion Database This link opens in a new window
Scholarship on major religions, faiths, denominations presented in many different languages. Includes journal articles, books, reviews and essays.
Important topics covered include: Biblical Studies, World Religions, Church History, and Religion in Social Issues.
Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Covers political topics with a worldwide focus, including international relations, political theory and comparative politics.
America: History & Life Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
Largest social sciences database, providing access to over 4,300 social sciences journal titles.
Subjects covered include: anthropology, economics, geography, law, political science, psychology, sociology.
Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Covers virtually every discipline and subject area. Find here full-text academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Access more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Covers the arts and humanities, education, law, social sciences, biology, general science. Does not provide the latest 3-5 years.

Readers' Guide Full Text Mega This link opens in a new window
Covers articles from popular magazines on a wide variety of subjects. 1983- present.
Readers' Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window
Provides citations and abstracts to more than 3 million magazine articles published between 1890-1982. Covers a wide variety of subjects.

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Access over 12,000 regional, national, and international full-text news sources.
New York Times | Current This link opens in a new window
Full-text of the NYTimes from 1980 to the present.
Pictures, graphs, charts are not included. Includes the NYT Book Review from 1997 to the present, and the NYT Magazine from 1997 to the present.
New York Times | Historical This link opens in a new window
PDF images of the New York Times (1851-present) with the exception of the latest three years.
Wall Street Journal | Current This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text articles of the WSJ from 1984 to the present. Text only; does not include charts, pictures, graphs.
Wall Street Journal | Historical This link opens in a new window
Provides PDF images of the entire Wall Street Journal (1889 to 2003).

What Is It?

Almost all of the library's databases will allow you to limit to academic/scholarly, or peer-reviewed journals. Limiting to academic/scholarly, however, is imperfect: You'll also retrieve professional journals. Some professors consider these scholarly; others don't.

Ask your professor to clarify this.

How can you tell what it is you found? You'll need to look for clues. None of these clues may be consistently applied--taken together, however, they can get you close.

Journal in the journal title. You can't apply this clue blindly-- Ladies' Home Journal is not scholarly.

Subject specific terminology or language within the article title.

High page numbers. Typically scholarly journals continuously paginate January through December. Thus, after the publication of the first volume, you'll see high page numbers. This is an important clue--probably the one you can count on most. Still, imperfect.

References or Works Cited within the article. Again, imperfect. Look for other clues.

Abstract is contained within the article (useful only if you can pull up the full-text of the article) Again, imperfect.

Authors identified within the article as having come from a university, college, or research facility. Imperfect. Look for other clues.

Still unsure? Check Ulrich's Periodicals Directory for the definitive word on whether your source is scholarly or general.

Image source: Syker Fotograf. GNU GPL. Wikimedia Commons.