LibGuides: Patristics: Finding journal articles

Finding Journal Articles

You have access to an extensive range of journal publications at the University.
Primarily, content is available in electronic format: maximising access and discoverability
Search online to find journal articles on particular topics or writers
Spend some time planning your search strategy to maximise your search and discovery. The Search Techniques LibGuide has hints and tips to assist you
You will also be directed to articles via your module readings in ELE, and you will come across bibliographies and references to more literature in the books, journal articles and reference works that you explore

Library Search

You have access to an extensive range of journal publications at the University.

Example journal article reference

Ward, H.C. '"Symbolic Interpretation is Most Useful": Clement of Alexandria's Scriptural Imagination.' Journal of Early Christian Studies, vol. 25, no.4, 2017, pp.531-560. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/earl.2017.0052

Use Library Search to look up the Journal of Early Christian Studies and access the full text of the article.

Library Search

Topic Searching

Use Library Search to find journal articles and other materials on a topic
Just enter your search terms into the search box
Example search: salvation early church
Note that a mixture of matching results are found, including journal articles, but also books, magazines etc.
You can use the Refine by limits to tailor your search, e.g. you could just choose to look at journal articles, or just books
There are lots of other useful limits too, such as language and date ranges

Databases A-Z

Use the Databases A-Z list to select a specific resource for comprehensive searching
You can browse by subject or type (e.g. maps, news, images etc.) or search to find your required resource. A short online demo is available to guide you
Select Theology from the drop down subject menu for a subset of databases with a particular focus on theology and religion topics
The subject listings provide a few 'best bets' options, i.e. these are key databases that are likely to be of interest to anyone studying and researching in that area, and then lists all other relevant databases
Key databases are highlighted below but do explore the listings to see all the available databases you have access to

Key Research Databases

ATLA Religion database This link opens in a new window
An index to scholarly literature in theology and religion, with some links to full text and to the Library holdings. not all material is available in full text
Religion & Philosophy Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Extensive coverage of such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. 300 full text journals, included
Religious and Theological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Index and summaries of articles appearing in scholarly journals in the fields of Religion and Theology. Full text is not available so you would need to check full text access using Library Search

Example search: Atla Religion database

You can search by topic, them and/or names of individual Church fathers to find relevant journal articles
Screenshot shows a quick results view of a search for church fathers and salvation. Some items will be available in full text, but this is a global literature database so you will be able to see abstracts only for some items
Use the Full Text and PDF links to see full text where it is available, or you can check the library holdings for print availability

ATLA Religion database This link opens in a new window

What is Google Scholar?

The Google Scholar search engine crawls publisher websites and open access repositories for journal article content.

You can configure the Scholar settings so that you are linked through to the full text of journal titles that are accessible to you through the University.

Take a look at the Making the most of Google Scholar guide for guidance on adjusting the settings of this search engine. By adjusting your settings you will give yourself the best chance of finding full text materials when searching on Google Scholar.

Making the Most of Google Scholar

Another useful discovery service is Google Books. As its name suggests, the focus of that service is book content.

Copyright free material will be available to view in full, other titles will be available in bibliographic format only with some limited search functionality.

Remember that not all information found on the internet is of good quality. Make sure you evaluate the quality of any information you want to use within your research.

More guidance on this is available in the Search Techniques Libguide.