Library Guides: MSc Charities Courses: Journal articles and other research

Journal Articles

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the gold standard of academic research. In big databases like Business Source Ultimate and ProQuest Business Collection, select the "Scholarly/Peer-reviewed" option in your search results to identify peer-reviewed articles.

To find a specific journal title, go to the Journals A-Z list to search for specific journal titles and browse through their archives.

We have many databases for other academic subjects, too - if you are doing interdisciplinary research, try using our other Subject Guides to identify further resources.

Business Source Ultimate
Provides access to journal articles, case studies, company profiles, industry reports, SWOT Analysis, Working Papers & interviews with executives & analysts. Coverage is international with content including business & management, accounting & finance, HR management, marketing and economics. It also covers engineering, health, social studies, some business law and includes full text access to the Harvard Business Review.
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ProQuest One Business
Peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, conference proceedings, and working papers as well as trade publications, industry reports, and key periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the Economist.
Accessibility information for ProQuest One Business
Also covers ProQuest Accounting & Tax, Asian Business & Reference, Banking Information Source, Entrepreneurship, and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is a full-text database containing journal articles and book chapters from thousands of journals and ebooks. The majority of content is published by Elsevier. Subjects covered include science, technology, business, management, accounting, health sciences, engineering and social science.
Accessibility information for ScienceDirect
Full-text access is to subscribed content only
Emerald Insight
Emerald Insight provides abstracts and full text access to books and journals published by Emerald. Content includes the subject areas of accounting, management, education, engineering and information science.
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JSTOR
Is an archive of important scholarly journals and e-books in the the arts, business and economics, history, the humanities, law, medicine and allied health, science and mathematics, and the social sciences.
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EconLit with Full Text
Published by the American Economic Association, Econlit with full-text covers all fields of economics, including: capital markets, country studies, econometrics, economic forecasting, environmental economics, and labour economic.
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WARC
International market research database covering peer-reviewed journals, case studies, WARC briefings & best practice guides on marketing strategy & implementation, research papers, media & advertising data and market context analysis. Includes Market Leader, the Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising & the International Journal of Market Research.
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© and database right Warc Limited and/or its licensors 2024. All warranties and liabilities disclaimed to the fullest extent permitted by law.

User Guides available in Business Library Moodle 2023-2024. For access to the user guides, non-Business School students and staff should email businesslibrary@city.ac.uk.
APA PsycArticles
PsycARTICLES is a database of full-text articles in psychology from journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
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IngentaConnect
Ingentaconnect contains a large collection of academic and professional research articles, covering a wide range of subjects and publishers.
Accessibility information for IngentaConnect
Ingenta is a database that allows you locate references from around recent 30,000 publications, with some links to full text resources. Subjects covered include arts, food sciences, computer and information science, economics and business, technology, mathematics, nursing, psychology and social sciences, amongst others.
Greenleaf Online Library (GOL)
GOL is a collection of books and journals in the fields of sustainability, business ethics, responsible management and accountability. GOL also includes content from the United Nations Global Compact, and the Greenleaf/PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education) series.
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The Greenleaf Online Library has moved to the Taylor & Francis e-book platform.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Is an open access collection of full text scientific and scholarly journals. It aims to cover all subjects and languages.
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Finding Highly-Rated Research

Citation Searching

Use these databases to identify journal articles, find out how many times they have been cited, and discover journal impact factors.

Web of Science
Web of Science is a multidisciplinary resource which enables simultaneous cross-searching of a range of citation indexes and databases. It provides access to research tools like cited reference searching and the Journal Citation Reports.
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SCOPUS
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. It covers international research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities and has smart tools to track, analyse and visualise research.
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Identifying Highly-Rated Journals

The CABS Academic Journal Guide is the Chartered Association of Business Schools' guide to prestigious journal titles in business and management topics. Use the red 'Register/Log In' button under the page title to view and download a copy. It's an excellent way to work out what the most highly rated academic journals are for inclusion in your project.

You can then find the direct link to these journals in our subscriptions using our Journals A-Z List - search for the journal title, not for individual articles.

Academic Journal Guide 2021 - Chartered Association of Business Schools
The CABS' guide to prestigious journals in business and management topics.

Working Papers

NBER Working Papers
Aim to make results of NBER research available to other economists in preliminary form to encourage discussion and suggestions for revision before publication in scholarly journals.
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SSRN
The Social Science Research Network consists of an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 148,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and a full-text Collection currently containing over 117,200 downloadable full text documents. Networks covered in our subscription are Accounting Research, Economics Research, Financial Economics and Legal Scholarship. Registration is required.
IMF Research
Working papers, reports and data from the International Monetary Fund.
Bank of England Research
Working papers, data and other research from the Bank of England.
ECB Working Papers
Working papers from the European Central Bank.

Government Publications, Theses and Reports

Often called "grey literature", these publications can be hard to find. Try searching on the websites of governments, charities, research institutes and similar websites to find relevant papers. Universities around the world often make theses available online.

Open Grey
Provides open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe.

British Library EThOS
EThOS (the Electronic Theses Online System Index) allows searching and access to doctoral theses produced by all PhD awarding UK Higher Education institutions. Some are available for immediate download of full-text, others are available on request.
This is currently unavailable following a cyber-attack at the provider, more information is available from the British Library.
Accessibility information for British Library EThOS

UK Government Publications Search
Covers various types of UK central government publications, including command papers, act papers and policies and guidance.

Finding a specific journal article

If you are looking for a specific article, (e.g. one recommended by your lecturer), the best resource to use is CityLibrary Search.
Enter the title of the article and select Articles from the drop down menu.
If the article is available from the library, the title will be displayed and you can access it by selecting the Full Text Online link below it.

Sometimes we have access to a journal article, but it will not show up in your search results from City Library Search. If your article does not appear in your search results:

Go to the Journals A-Z list and search for the journal title. It should retrieve a title that matches the journal title you're looking for.
Click on the link with the date range that corresponds to the date on your reference.
Login with your City username and password or City email address.
Select the year, volume and issue listed in your reference. If no volume or issue information is provided, page numbers can help you identify the issue.
Find the article title on the journal list and look for full text.

Tips for searching academic databases

Make a list of the terms you try out as you search.

Stops the frustration of searching the same phrase repeatedly!
You can use the list to search the next database more quickly
Writing a list allows you to make new connections between concepts
Helps identify synonyms, alternative words/phrases

Use options on your search results page to narrow down your search. Try selecting 'peer-reviewed/scholarly' to see only peer-reviewed articles and narrowing by the date of publication.

Try these advanced search tips, too:

Phrase searching: put a phrase in inverted commas to find articles where that exact phrase appears, not just the words in any order. For instance, "climate change" or "financial services".
Add ‘wildcards’ to search across different formations or spellings of the same root word. Using a * searches alternative endings (‘manag*’ will retrieve management, managers, managing, etc.)
Truncation: using a ? Searches alternative spellings (‘organi?ation’ retrieves both ‘organization’ and ‘organisation’.