Research Resources 101

When scholars talk about journals, they usually mean academic journals - serial publications of research articles written by experts in their fields to demonstrate their experimental findings or discuss theories. Many, many journals exist for all academic disciplines, from the Arts to the Sciences; Hekman Library receives over 6,000 print journals regularly and has access to over 36,000 electronic journals through databases and e-journal vendors. Even the journals we don't have access to online or in-house, we can still get copies for you through our MeL/ILL services.

• Pros: short articles instead of thick books ; many available online ; high standards of research ; more available through MeL/ILL 
• Cons: very specific focus (not great for general information) ; often highly technical ; a few have online publication delay of a year or more
• Scholarly or Non? Many academic journals have a peer review or referee process in which a team of other experts in the subject area will examine their articles before they are accepted for publication, sometimes sending a paper back to the author for improvement if there are flaws in the research or writing. This process makes it much more likely that the content of the journal will be sound and of high quality. By limiting your search to peer-reviewed journals and journal articles only, you should be able to collect good, scholarly sources. 

While the library provides access to many academic journals freely to you, outside the library, most journals require you to pay for each article or subscribe to the journal. This is why it is important to always login with your Calvin ID and use Hekman Library to find and link to these journals - this pathway will authenticate you as a Calvin user so that you will not have to pay for access to the journal (if you are asked to pay, check that you are logged into the library website or contact a librarian for help). This electronic access is limited to Calvin students, faculty/staff, and alumni, but there are other sources for academic journals online available freely for everyone called Open Access journals. Click the links below to view several open-access journal collections: