Q. How can I find scholarly journals?

The main place to find TCC Library's scholarly journal content is through the library databases (many of which contain the full text content of scholarly journals). You do not need to be on campus to access them. Our Discovery catalog searches through a lot of databases all at once, so it can be a great initial place to start. 

• To find out if a specific journal is scholarly or not (maybe one that was recommended to you), you can check to see if a specific title is scholarly by using this other FAQ. 
• If you already know if a specific journal is scholarly or not, but would like to know if the TCC Library holds that specific title, then please search the Discovery Catalog on the library homepage and it will tell you if we hold it, the databases where you can get article content, and coverage date ranges within those specific databases. You can also search by ISSN. 
• If you do not know a journal title 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 some back issues of 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 peer-reviewed journals online in databases via our website. For how to find peer-reviewed articles, see this FAQ.  

Things to keep in mind: 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 when searching there. You can find these databases in the A to Z listings under Articles & Databases.

Because articles in scholarly journals are usually written by experts for other experts in a particular field, they are often difficult for students to understand, especially when they are just beginning to study a topic. If a keyword search for journal articles doesn't seem to bring up any articles that are useful, you may need to backtrack and read up on the topic in more general sources, such as books or articles from reference databases, magazines, or even newspapers. This will help by exposing you to different keywords, as well as give you a better overall understanding of the topic.

You will be prompted to log into MyTCC before accessing the library databases if not already signed in.