Research Guides: Mathematics: 2: Find Sources

Find Sources

Journal Articles
Books

Find Journal articles report the results of research by experts. Sometimes they're also called "peer-reviewed articles," "scholarly articles," or "academic articles." They are often used in academic research.

You should use journal articles because they:

Contain evidence based on research
Are written by experts
Focus on a narrow topic
Provide detailed information
Are probably more accurate because of the peer-review process
Lend credibility to your paper

Find journal articles in these databases:

MathSciNet This link opens in a new window
Online version of the American Mathematical Society's Mathematical Reviews.
Science Citation Index Expanded This link opens in a new window
Science Citation Index Expanded provides access to the bibliographic and citation information needed to find research data, analyze trends, journals and researchers, and share their findings. Overcome information overload and focus on essential data from over 8,500 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals across 150 disciplines.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
ScienceDirect is a full-text database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and 11,000 books.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, and diverse primary sources.

Books on a shelf Some books include research by experts, and you may want to use them in your research project.

You should use books because they:

Give a broad overview of one or more topics
Explain a complex topic (books are easier to understand than journal articles)
Offer in-depth analysis of a topic
Summarize previous research on a topic

Find books in these databases:

UNC Libraries Catalog
Searches books, eBooks, music, videos, and other items at the Michener and Skinner Libraries.
Prospector
Searches books at other libraries in Colorado and Wyoming. Request books from these libraries and have them delivered to the Michener or Skinner Libraries.

Search Effectively

Yellow, blue, and purple keys Unlike Google, library databases can't understand complete sentences. You'll need to break your topic down into the most important concepts, also called keywords, and use those keywords to search library databases.

Example topic: How does social media impact happiness among teenagers?

Keywords: social media, happiness, teenagers

Brainstorm synonyms:

Sometimes experts use different terms than we use in everyday conversation. It's important to think of synonyms and related terms for your keywords so that you can use different combinations of words to get the best results when searching.

Keyword: teenagers

Synonyms: adolescents, youth

Library databases often have built-in search tools. Try them out!

Peer-Reviewed: Limit your search to journal articles.
Discipline: Limit your search to a particular discipline (such as psychology or education).
Publication Date: Limit your search to sources published during certain years.
Subject Terms: These are like library hashtags. Limit your search to sources about that subject.

Quotation marks Experts often cite each other's work, and that can help you find more sources on your topic!

To find older relevant sources:

Find the list of sources at the end of a relevant source you've found. This may be called "bibliography," "works cited," or "references."
Look for titles in the list that relate to your topic.
Copy and paste relevant titles into a library database.

To find newer relevant sources:

When you find a relevant source in a database, look for a link called "Cited by."
Click this link to see more recent sources that may be related to your topic.