You can access the library's subscription databases through the links below. The databases provide access to articles published in numerous types of sources: magazine, journals, newspapers, and books. 

Unlike sources found using a search engine such as Google, the sources you find via the databases have all been published in a print format. You can be assured of the article's credibility. 

The following are great places to get started:

When using a database you will find articles published in different kinds of sources:

• Academic, scholarly, or peer-reviewed journals
• Popular and special interest magazines, or trade publications
• Newspapers

Click on the links in the examples below to learn more about the kinds of information you can learn about an article in a database. These examples will help you better understand your results when you search a library database.

Scholarly Article

Click mouse over the circles to view and understand a scholarly article from a library database.

Magazine Article

Click mouse over the circles to view and understand a magazine article from a library database.

Newspaper Article

Click mouse over the circles to view and understand a newspaper article from library database search results. 

Each database provides a way for you to save a permanent link that will allow you to return to individual articles. This is important, as the URL that appears in the address bar when you are searching is not a permanent URL and will not return you to the article. In order to save the permanent link follow the instructions below. NOTE: they are specific to the vendor that provides the database.

EBSCO databases:

1. Click on the article title.
2. In the right column, click on Permalink in the Tools options.
3. Copy the Permalink that appears in a grey box above the article title.

In ProQuest databases:

1. Click on the article title.
2. Click on the Details tab.
3. Scroll down and copy the link in the Document URL category.

In Access World News:

1. Click on the article title.
2. Click the Copy Link icon on the top right hand side of the page.
3. Copy the link that appears. 

When you are off-campus you will be prompted to log-in with your Net ID and password before you can begin searching.

You may save and send permanent links to specific articles you locate in your database searches. They are often called Permalinks or Persistent Links.  If you do e-mail these to yourself you will need to add a Proxy Prefix to the permanent link provided by the database.

Add the following to the beginning of the permanent link URL:

http://www.library.illinois.edu/proxy/go.php?url= 

For additional information, see the Database Linking page.

1. Read the abstract

An abstract is a summary of the article, and will give you an idea of what the article is about and how it will be written. If there are lots of complicated subject-specific words in the abstract, the article will be just as hard to read.

2. Read the conclusion

This is where the author will repeat all of their ideas and their findings. Some authors even use this section to compare their study to others. By reading this, you will notice a few things you missed, and will get another overview of the content.

3. Read the first paragraph or the introduction

This is usually where the author will lay out their plan for the article and describe the steps they will take to talk about their topic. By reading this, you will know what parts of the article will be most relevant to your topic!

4. Read the first sentence of every paragraph

These are called topic sentences, and will usually introduce the idea for the paragraph that follows. By reading this, you can make sure that the paragraph has information relevant to your topic before you read the entire thing. 

5. The rest of the article

Now that you have gathered the idea of the article through the abstract, conclusion, introduction, and topic sentences, you can read the rest of the article!

To review: Abstract → Conclusion → Introduction → Topic Sentences → Entire Article