Find more subject-based databases
Select "Article Indexes and Research Databases" to find databases by subject. Use a database or two that is most recommended in that subject.
Have a Citation and Need Access?
First, use Google Scholar and search for the title of the article. Look for the link to the pdf or 
on the right side. If you do not see the article, use the Citation Linker where you should see if the UCSB Library has access to it or use the Request function to request a copy through Interlibrary Loan.
UC Library Search
Perform your search, then select "Peer Reviewed Journals" under "Show Only" on the left side of the results screen.
Find articles
To find more articles within journals, use these indexes and databases. These are the best ones to start with:
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window Web of Science consists of nine databases: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Science Citation Index Expanded for journal aritcles; Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science and Conference Proceedings - Social Sciences and Humanities; Book Citation Index - Science and Book Citation Index - Social Sciences and Humanities; and Current Chemical Reactions and Index Chemicus. Web of Science covers thousands of research journals, and extensive collections of conference proceedings and books. across hundreds of disciplines. Both the science and social sciences journal article files offer searchable author abstracts. All three databases are updated weekly.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window A scholarly, multi-disciplinary database providing indexing and abstracts for thousands of journals and other publications. Academic Search Complete includes full-text access to peer-reviewed journals, as well as indexing and abstracts for magazines, monographs, reports, and conference proceedings. The database features some PDF content going back as far as 1867, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
- Environment Index This link opens in a new window The online version of Environmental Periodicals Bibliography; formerly known as Environmental Issues & Policy Index and Environmental Knowledgebase. This database offers deep coverage in applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more. Environment Index contains more than 1,280,000 records from 1,200 domestic and international titles going back to the 1950s (including 642 active core titles) as well as 100 monographs. Environment Index also features an in-depth thesaurus, and author profiles will be provided for 3,000 authors in the discipline.
- Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) This link opens in a new window Covers all aspects of aquatic science including aquaculture, biology, conservation, environmental quality, fisheries, freshwater environments, limnology, marine biotechnology, marine environments, meteorology, oceanography, policy and legislation, and wildlife management.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window Business Source Complete covers all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Additional full text, non-journal content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Use this link to gain access to articles that UCSB subscribes to.
If you do not see a .pdf link to a journal article, look for the button. We might still have access to the article. Use this same button to request an article from elsewhere if UCSB does not subscribe to it.
Is it Peer Reviewed?
Many of the journals indexed in specialized databases are scholarly but those databases do not tell you whether a journal is peer reviewed or not.
To find out if a journal is peer reviewed look at the submission process on their website for authors.
You can also ask a reference librarian.
Scholarly and Academic Journal Articles
Scholarly journals (also called academic journals) contain articles written by, and addressed to, experts in a discipline. Scholarly journals present the research of experts in a field, although these journals also often carry opinion pieces or even advertisements unique to the field addressed by the journal. Publication cycles vary for scholarly journals, ranging from yearly to monthly but most frequently they are published bimonthly (every other month) or quarterly.
Peer-reviewed journals (also called refereed or juried journals) send submitted articles to one or more experts for review before deciding to publish them. This review process helps ensure that published articles reflect solid scholarship in a field. Most often, the experts reviewing an article make critical comments on the text, comments that the author must incorporate into the article before its publication.
While not all scholarly journals are peer-reviewed, it is usually safe to assume that a peer-reviewed journal is also scholarly.
Tables, Graphs & Images
Look for the HTML version of an article to download these items as it's difficult to extract a high quality image from a pdf file. Be sure to cite where your images come from!