The following databases provide the strongest coverage of scholarly journals in business. However, they include more than just scholarly articles: you'll also find articles from some trade, news, and popular magazines.

Use these databases especially when you're researching business issues or theories.

Scholarly articles usually ...

 –   Provide analysis of a topic / issue, exploring it in greater depth
 –   Are considered the most authoritative
 –   Can be very narrow in scope, technical or theoretical

Trade journals are publications (magazines or newspapers) aimed at a specific industry, profession or market. Usually the publication's title says who is the intended audience (e.g. Contractor, Bridges, RN). 

Trade journal articles usually ...

  –  Are written by people who work in or specialize in a particular industry / profession, but are not scholars
  –  Provide current news and information about the industry and the companies in it

For better results when searching in both trade and news articles, use search techniques beyond the Boolean OR and AND commands:  use proximity commands and truncation also.

Some of these databases contain more than just trade journal articles, some scholarly, some popular, even some newswires. But their strength is in their coverage of the trades.

Use these databases when you're researching specific companies, especially if the company is small or private. Use them also if you're researching business conditions at a local level, not regional or national.

Searching in newspaper databases is not always as easy as in other article databases: they do not usually have any subject terms, so often you must put more thought into finding alternate search terms. I suggest starting with the big newspaper databases listed at the bottom of this section.

The BIG news databases:

These commands tell the search engine to find two words near each other, separated by a maximum number of words.  The search terms will be retrieved regardless of the order they're in.

➤  Search within the full-text of articles (not the default) for better results.  
➤  Especially useful for searching in news and trade articles.

These commands are very useful!  Here are two scenarios:

• When searching on people's names, you have to allow for the use or absence of a middle name/initial. 
• When searching for phrases where the significant words can be used in different ways/orders, but still have the same meaning.  For example, the following phrases all mean basically the same thing: 

   –  commercials aired during recent superbowls
   –  superbowl LVII commercials
   –  commercials from superbowl 57  

Truncation: 

Truncation just means that you shorten a search word so that the search engine will retrieve variations of that search word. You type fewer words and tell the search engine to do the work!  The asterisk (*) is the truncation symbol for most platforms.

➤  Search within the full-text of articles (not the default) for better results.  
➤  Especially useful for searching in news and trade articles.

* (the asterisk) in most platforms:

Works in ProQuest, Ebsco, Nexis Uni, NewsBank and Gale databases:

Here are examples that show how to format a search and spell out what will be retrieved:  

educat* retrieves: educate, educated, educates, educating, education, educator, educators
govern* retrieves: govern, governed, governing, government, governments, governor, governors, governs

About truncation: 

 –  Requires a root 'word' of 3 letters minimum
 –  Works better with a root of 4 or 5 letters (that is, will retrieve more relevant keywords)
 –  Cannot be used on the left side (beginning) of the root word

Wild card characters:

Wild card characters allow more control than simple truncation:  for example, they can be used for spelling variations (woman vs. women; color vs. colour), or for limited truncation (for example, adaptor or adapted or adapts, but not adaptation or adapting). 

But there is NO standardization among database platforms, so check the help pages for each platform you use!  Characters used as wild cards include:  the asterisk (*), the question mark (?), the number or pound sign (#), and even the exclamation point (!).  

Here's a short video showing how Find it @ MU works. (About 4 minutes long.)

Two common ways to find out if the Libraries have access to the articles you need:

1) You are searching in an article database, but it doesn't have the full-text:  

Click on  in the article citation. Another window / tab opens with two possible options:

• Links indicating Find it @MU may have located one or more sources for full text of the article. Click on the links and follow the trail to the article. 
• Links to search MARQCAT by the journal title or its ISSN number. The journal may be available in print or electronically through a source not searchable by Find it @MU.

2) You already have a specific citation and aren't currently searching in a database:

• Use MARQCAT's Advanced Search to search for the journal title.

The MARQCAT record will indicate what years we have in print and/or online, providing call number locations for the print and links to the e-journal.  Once at the e-journal, navigate to the volume, issue and page that you need.

Questions:

Didn't find the article/journal using Find it @MU or MARQCAT?  Request the article through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) by clicking on the link at the bottom of the Find it @MU window or tab.  Learn more about ILL here.

Ever wonder why the full-text isn't there?  Watch this short video about the Business of Information.