Abstract:
For students, researchers, and professionals, finding relevant journal articles online is a critical skill. This article reviews sources, search strategies, and tools to efficiently locate high-quality scientific literature.

Introduction:
The volume of scholarly work is vast and growing. Effective search strategies are needed to find the right articles without wasting time. This article outlines sources (databases, search engines), search techniques, and evaluation criteria. If you need any information on this article-related topic, click here. GetByDOI

Sources of Online Journal Articles:

Academic Databases: Subject-specific databases (e.g., PubMed, IEEE Xplore, JSTOR) provide curated, peer-reviewed content.

Institutional Libraries: Many universities subscribe to large collections, granting students/staff access. Libraries often provide metadata, full texts, and inter-library loan services.

Open Access Repositories: Platforms like DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), institutional repositories, and preprint servers offer free full texts.

Search Engines for Scholarly Literature: Tools like Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar index large numbers of articles, often linking to full texts or open versions.

Search Strategy and Best Practices:

Define Keywords and Use Boolean Operators: Identify main concepts; use AND, OR, NOT to combine terms. Use truncation or wildcard symbols if supported.

Use Subject Filters or Controlled Vocabulary: Many databases use subject headings or classification schemes; using these filters sharpens results.

Check References and Cited By: From relevant articles, explore their reference lists, and see which later works cited them.

Limit by Date, Type, Language: Narrowing by recent years, article type (review vs original research), and language can reduce overload.

Full-Text Access vs Abstracts: If full text isn’t directly available, note whether your institution has subscriptions, or seek versions via open access or author-archived copies.

Tools and Assistance:

Library guides often offer tutorials on using databases and repositories.
Bradley University LibGuides

Reference managers (e.g., Zotero, Mendeley) help organise and annotate articles.

Alerts and RSS feeds from journals or databases can be used to watch for new work in specific fields.

Conclusion:
Finding journal articles online is not just about typing keywords–it involves knowing where to look, how to filter, and how to judge quality. With good strategy and the right tools, researchers can access high-quality literature efficiently.