Abstract A brief summary of an article allowing the reader to quickly ascertain the article's main points and purpose.
Citation Information about a book or journal article, providing details of author, title, place of publication, publisher, and year for a book; for a journal article include author, title of article, title of journal, volume, pages, and date.
Database A library database is an online resource that the library subscribes to which contains articles and information from print sources such as magazines, journals, newspapers, journals, and reference books. A database can be searched by things like author, title, journal title, subject and date. Some databases will provide full text while some will only provide abstracts
DOI Digital Object Identifier, a unique code used to identify and retrieve an article or document from databases and the Internet
eBook An electronic version of a traditional print book that can be read by using a personal computer
Full text The entire text of the article (or other document) is available from the database, ready to read or print from your computer.
Journal Contains peer reviewed (also called refereed or scholarly) articles written by and for experts in a particular area
Magazine A serial that contains articles written for a general audience e.g. North and South, Listener and House and Garden
Peer reviewed Journal articles, usually containing original research (qualitative or quantitative), that have undergone a review and selection process by experts in that field
Refereed see Peer reviewed
Scholarly see Peer reviewed
Serial A publication issued on a regular basis - usually journals, magazines, newspapers, and annual reports
Trade journal A publication that is written by and for people working in a specific field or industry. Does not usually contain peer reviewed or scholarly articles e.g. Computerworld, Management Today
When you are searching for articles on a topic, try using the Library databases for high quality information. The Library subscribes to a number of electronic (or online) databases which contain many full-text electronic articles. In addition, databases contain references and summaries (called 'abstracts') to other useful articles that may not be in electronic format. These articles may be available in print format in the Library serial collection, or they may be obtained via interloan.
Following are links to the Library's web pages where you can access these databases.
Not quite sure what Peer Review is? Watch this short video clip from North Carolina State University Libraries.