A periodical can be either a magazine or a journal. Both are periodicals, i.e., publications issued on a regular schedule, and planned to be published indefinitely.

Magazines are popular periodicals, such as

If you look at their print editions, magazines frequently have lots of photographs, and lots of advertisements. Articles are written to appeal to broad audiences.

Information in magazine articles may come from many different sources; it is very uncommon for these sources to be cited (i.e., there are no citations, no footnotes).

Journals are scholarly periodicals such as

They usually do not carry advertisements; they usually do not include lots of photographs or slick layouts. Journal articles are written by experts or researchers in the field. The language of scholarly journal articles is the language of the discipline, and may be quite technical. Journal articles are contributions to ongoing scholarly work; resources that are used are cited (in footnotes and/or article bibliographies).

EBSCOhost's Academic Search Elite provides access to information about articles published in approximately 3,200 periodicals (both magazines and journals); for about 1800 of those periodicals, fulltext copies of the articles are in the database. 

Here's how you use Academic Search Elite

  1. Be on the Cabrillo College Library homepage  http://libwww.cabrillo.edu [If you are at an Information Workstation in the Library, just click on HOME near the top of the screen.] 
  2. Click on Fulltext Articles  [If you are coming in from off campus, your user ID is your library card number] 
  3. On the next screen, click on Magazine & Journal Articles  (EBSCOhost) (top left)
  4. On the next screen, click on 
  5. On the next screen, click on  
  6. Here are some useful ways to limit your searches:
    • Click in the small box next to Full Text if you want to retrieve only fulltext articles (ones you can read on your screen, print out, or email)
    • Click in the small box next to Cabrillo College Library Journals if you want to limit to print resources in this library. It's often a good idea to click on both these boxes -- that way, you'll be getting access to the full version of articles.
    • Click on the small box next to Peer Reviewed if you want to limit your search to scholarly journals.
      Now, type in your search terms.  Then click on the Search button.  

Your topic: __________________________________

Click on a periodical title to get to the screen with full information about it

Periodical title (look where it says Source):__________________

Article title ___________________________________________

Date of the periodical____________________________________ 

NOTE: Just so you know -- You can read an article on your computer screen, of course. When you are researching, you might want to print, save, or email the article.

  • Click to add the article(s) to a folder
  • Click to open the folder (click on Folder has items)
  • Click to Print, Email, or Save to Disk

How to get to this page on the Internet

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage <http://libwww.cabrillo.edu>
  2. Click on Library & Internet Instruction (3rd icon from the bottom, on left)
  3. Click on 1. Web Workshops for Fall 2003

Topsy N. Smalley last rev. 10/06/03