Subject guides: Humanitarian aid and development: Articles, Journals and Databases

What is an article?

An article (or journal article) is a paper published in a journal. Articles will present highly regarded and authoritative information and include bibliographies or reference lists of a similar quality. They can focus on original research or synthesise research of others. Some articles may be peer reviewed.

You should be able to identify a journal name, author details, a title and volume an issue details.

Find a known article

If you know the exact title of the article, type it into your search tool e.g. Library Search or a database. Enclose the exact title in quotation marks.

Filter your results by "articles"

Find an article using keywords

If you have a key concepts to search for chose an advanced search to combine these terms
Use quotation marks around exact terms e.g. "academic performance"
Use "OR" between similar terms to find synonyms e.g. "academic performance" OR "academic achievement"
Filter results
- by "article"
- peer reviewed
- full text online
- date range

Journals in Humanitarian aid

Scholarly Journals

Different sources can be used for different purposes. Wikipedia may be useful to give you background information to help you gain an understanding of your topic but it will NOT be acceptable as a reference to support your assignment.

A scholarly or peer reviewed source is work that has been written by researchers and academics, and has been through a rigorous selection and review process prior to publication..

If you need to verify if your source is peer reviewed you can use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Type in the journal title (eg. Medical Journal of Australia) – not the article title – and you will be able to see if the journal is peer-reviewed by the little referee jumper symbol next to the title.

You can limit your search to peer reviewed resources by filtering on the left hand side of your Library Search results page.

Key databases

Cambridge Core This link opens in a new window Cambridge University Press publishes a wide range of journals, books, and textbooks in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities subject areas.
EBSCOhost Databases This link opens in a new window All EBSCOhost databases.
Emerald fulltext This link opens in a new window Emerald has some good journals covering disaster aid and humanitarian studies
INFORMIT Databases This link opens in a new window Good Australian coverage, not found in Library Search Options to select include: APAFT (Australian Public Affairs Full text) APAIS (Australian Public Affairs INformation Service) - Indigenous content
JSTOR This link opens in a new window It is a non-profit database providing access to back issues of core journals in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences.
ProQuest Databases This link opens in a new window All ProQuest databases
Sage Journals This link opens in a new window Full text access (1999 to present) to 450 journal titles in business, humanities, social sciences and science, technology and medicine.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window Includes access to the Elsevier Freedom Collection (full text 1995 to present) and the Academic Press backset (full text 1993 - 1995). Articles from over 1800 subscribed journal titles may be viewed, table of contents for non subscribed titles can also be accessed. Main subject areas of the collection include the sciences, technology, medicine and psychology, a smaller number of titles from arts, humanities, economics & finance, and the social sciences are also covered.
Scopus This link opens in a new window Scopus is an international multi-disciplinary abstracting and indexing database. Subjects covered include chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, life and health sciences, social sciences, psychology, economics, biological, agricultural and general sciences.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window Provides seamless access to the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
Wiley Online Library This link opens in a new window The Wiley Online Library provides access to journals and ebooks published by Wiley-Blackwell, full text access to individual titles is provided where CDU holds a subscription.

Choosing the Best Database

Library Search is a simple way to search for information resources, including books and journal articles. However, Library Search does not always show ALL the resources held in specialist databases.

Sometimes you need to search discipline-specific, specialist databases to find the information that you need for your assignments. These databases are tailored to a particular discipline, and therefore provide the ability to narrow your search in ways that wouldn't be possible in a general database or search tool like Library Search e.g in a psychology database you can limit to clinical trials, or to age groups studied, or to evidence-based practice.

Databases vary in content, geographical coverage and subject area and may include more than just journal articles, e.g. systematic reviews, conference proceedings, book chapters, patient information sheets, theses, or drug information may also be covered.

Have a look at the Databases suggestions on the right or the Databases list on the Library home page.