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In this video, we'll look at how you can find scholarly articles in the database Communication and Mass Media Complete.
Or any other EBSCO database available from the OU Libraries.
Starting on the library home page, click on the link for Info Tree Subject Resources.
And then the link for Communications.
The database Communications and Mass Media Complete is the first one that comes up.
so, click on that link, and now you're in the database.
You'll need to enter a search term here
In my example, I'm going to look at gender and advertising
using an asterisk to get all the different forms of that word.
And then, under Limit your results, I'm going to check
the box for scholarly or peer reviewed journals.
This tells the database to only give me articles from journals that have a peer review process.
Click search.
And now you can see your search results.
I can see that the journals that are represented here are
things like the Journal of Neurolinguistics
Telematics & Informatics...the Journal of Marketing...the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.
All of these are research, or peer-reviewed journals.
rather than Advertising Age or Broadcasting and Cable, which are more trade-publications that might deal with this same topic.
One thing to be aware of, however...
sometimes in a journal that has a peer-review process, there will be an article that is an editorial or an essay.
These aren't research-based articles, per se.
This one is an example: "AMARC and More than 25 Years of Community Media Activism."
In this case, this is a history of this broadcasting program.
This article is only three pages long and if I read through the abstract, I see that it's really a history
of this organization and not a research-based article.
So it may be great for this topic, but sometimes your paper will ask you to use research-based articles.
Wherever you're searching, whether in EBSCO or another database
if you're not sure whether a journal is peer-reviewed
You can always look for the journal's home page out on the web.
I have an example here for the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior
When I look at the "Aims and Scope" I can see that it's a peer-reviewed journal.
So if you're not sure, don't hesitate to look at the home page for the journal, because they will likely tell you.
I'm going back to the database...
Remember that if you can't find what you need or if you're not sure if an article is scholarly or research-based
You can always go to the OU Libraries' home page and click on the link for "Ask a Librarian"