Answered By Library Staff
Last Updated: Apr 12, 2024     Views: 339

To find out if a journal is scholarly or not, it is helpful to have a title. You can check to see if a specific title is scholarly by using this other FAQ. If you would like to know if the TCC Library holds that specific scholarly journal title, then please search the Discovery Catalog search on the library homepage and it will tell you if we hold it, the coverage ranges, and the databases where you can get article content. 

If you do not know a title to research and are just trying to find one, you might start by finding scholarly articles and working backwards to see what journal they are listed in. What qualifies as "scholarly" is often subjective and should ultimately default to what your instructor requires. View this video to learn more about what qualifies as a scholarly journal and why defining it can be hard: 

The West Campus Library, Metro Library, and the Southeast Campus Library have print journals in their physical collection. Our library staff can direct your to the print collections on your campus library.

We also have thousands of scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journals online in databases via our website.

For online scholarly or peer-reviewed articles, follow these instructions:

1. From the library's homepage, go to the Articles & Databases.
2. Select a database such as Academic Search Premier which allows you restrict the results to include ONLY peer-reviewed or scholarly articles.

Tip: To restrict your results to only peer-reviewed or scholarly articles, look for the checkbox "Scholarly (Peer-reviewed) journals" on the left side of the screen in the filter options.

Some databases, such as JSTOR and ScienceDirect, only include scholarly/peer-reviewed journals in the database, so there is no need to limit your results. You can find these databases in the A to Z listings under Articles & Databases.

** You will be prompted to log into MyTCC before accessing the library databases.