LibGuides: History: Articles

Scholarly vs Popular Articles

Scholarly journals have collections of articles written by experts in academic or professional fields to keep others interested in that field, up-to-date on the most recent research, findings, and news. These articles are reviewed by a journal editorial board or experts in the specific discipline (peer-reviewed).

Popular Sources are articles, blog posts, and news feeds that are written primarily by journalists to inform the general public about interesting and newsworthy events. These articles may or may not be subject to a review process and should be heavily evaluated before use. Popular articles are not peer-reviewed.

	Scholarly	Popular
Who is the Author?	Researchers, Scholars and Professors	Primarily journalists
Who is the targeted audience?	Students, scholars, and researchers	The general public
What is the purpose of the article?	To advance understanding in a field of study	To inform the public and sell newspapers/magazines
Are there citations?	Always	Not often
Are there ads?	Rarely	Most of the time
Are current events covered?	No - the peer review process takes time	Yes
Examples	The Journal of American History	National Geographic

Recommended Databases

JSTOR - Full Text This link opens in a new window
Full-text archive of key academic journals across disciplines in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers world history from the 15th century to the present (excluding the United States and Canada). Coverage extends to related disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology and sociology. Includes the full text of more than 530 journals and 140 books.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 150 million pages and 150,000 titles of legal history and government documents. Includes coverage of more than 2,400 law-related periodicals. Contains the Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and more.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
The world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary database. Indexes newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals in all disciplines. Contains a significant amount of full-text. Content available from 1915-present.
Peace Research Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Peace Research Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. EBSCO has digitized the full archive of this index, including coverage dating back to 1964.
Race Relations Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Race Relations Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government, this database offers a thorough collection of periodicals, academic journals, and other content pertinent to the increasing needs of those sites.
Religion and Philosophy Collection This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive database covering such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. Includes nearly 300 full text journals.
Humanities Source This link opens in a new window
Covers all aspects of the humanities. Includes full text for more that 1400 journals, with citations to more than 3.5 million articles, including book reviews.
MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new window
Designed specifically for public libraries, MasterFILE Premier contains full text for nearly 1,950 periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more.

Looking for historic or current newspapers?

Newspaper Databases
A listing of newspaper databases available through Murray State University Libraries and the web.

Finding the Full-Text of an Article

If the full-text of an article is available via the database, there will be a link labeled "PDF Full Text" or "HTML Full Text"
If the full-text is not available via the database, you will see a button labeled "get it MSU" and be redirected to a new page.
If the article is available via another database, you should see a link
If the article is not available you have the option to
- Request it via Interlibrary Loan
- Search Google Scholar
- Search for it in Print
- Ask a librarian for further assistance

History

Browse Scholarly Journals in History

Your Liaison Librarian

Scholarly vs Popular Articles

Recommended Databases

Finding the Full-Text of an Article