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Scholarly Research Tutorial: B. Getting Your Hands On It

Wondering where to start finding sources for a paper? Not sure where to go beyond Google? Start here for a quick tutorial in effective research methods for scholarly papers.

Home Stretch!

We've finally arrived at step 5 of the research process: retrieving your chosen resource. (Or, in layman's terms: turning that database record into an article you can actually read!) 

If your article is in full text in Academic Search Premier, then it will be available to read on-screen or attached to the database record as a PDF.  That's it -- you've retrieved it and you're done.

Here is what full text availability will look like in most of our databases:

 

 

Academic Search Premier is partially full-text: you'll find lots of records with PDF attachments, but not every article will be right there. You may be tempted to abandon it if a full-text option doesn't appear in your search results. However, just because one database doesn't have your article in full-text doesn't mean it's not available in another database!

So how do you check if it is? 

Two more tips for article retrieval:

  1. ILL: Full-text articles that you can't find in our databases can be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Request only if you really need that specific article and no acceptable alternates are available. (Processing time: 2 days - 2 weeks.)
  2. Get Help: If you're struggling, contact a librarian -- we're all about smoothing the process!