LibGuides: Human Development & Family Studies Library Resources: Scholarly Articles

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Article Databases: Top Picks

Use a library database to find journal articles on your research topic.

If you are new to using indexes, this guide on Tips for Finding Articles will be useful. If you need a refresher on how to identify scholarly journal articles, refer to the Scholarly vs. Popular articles chart.

Top Picks

PsycINFO including PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
Contains summaries of the world's journal literature, of dissertations and technical reports, and of English-language chapters and books in psychology and related disciplines. No full text content within PsycInfo, but there are links to full text in other databases, including PsycARTICLES. Also includes psychology articles from related disciplines such as sociology, linguistics, education, medicine, law, physiology, business, psychiatry, and anthropology.
Family & Society Studies Worldwide This link opens in a new window
Coverage: 1970 - present
Family & Society Studies Worldwide™ (FSSW) is a core resource providing the most comprehensive coverage of research, policy, and practice literature in the fields of Family Science, Human Ecology, Human Development, and Social Welfare. FSSW covers popular issues and meets the requirements of professionals in all fields of social work, social science and family practice. Coverage spans from 1970 to the present, indexing publications from a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, health sciences, education, economics, law, history and social work.

Article Databases: Supplemental Resources

Supplemental Databases

Topics in human development and family studies often overlap with complementary areas of inquiry. To that end, it may be useful to search within a multidisciplinary index, or other subject specific indexes. The list below is NOT COMPREHENSIVE and is intended as a starting point to direct you towards indexes that are often relevant to human development and family studies topics.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Includes the Institute for Scientific Information Citation Indexes - Arts and Humanities, Social Science, and Science. It indexes science, social sciences, and arts and humanities information from nearly 9,300 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world.
ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Research Library contains over 2,000 periodicals (nearly 1,000 of them in ASCII full-text or full-image formats) in a wide range of subject areas. In addition to general interest publications, ProQuest Research Library covers titles in the following areas: Arts, Business, Children, Education, General Interest, Health, Humanities, International, Law, Military, Multicultural, Psychology, Sciences, Social Sciences, and Women's Interests.

General Social Sciences

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences This link opens in a new window
The comprehensive coverage provided in the database, while based on the core disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science and sociology, also reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the social sciences. International Bibliography of Social Sciences, from the British Library of Political and Economic Science of the London School of Economics and Political Science, indexes the information contained in over 2,600 social sciences journals and 6,000 books each year. Coverage includes both core and specialized material from over 100 countries in more than 90 languages.
Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
Social Sciences Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles of at least one column in length from English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere plus the full text of selected periodicals. Coverage includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of social sciences journals.

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Contains hundreds of in-depth abstracts of current books, book chapters, journal articles, government reports, and dissertations published worldwide. Criminal Justice Abstracts also offers extensive coverage of new books from scholarly and commercial publishers and valuable reports from public and private agencies in many nations.

Education

ERIC (on ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
A U.S. national bibliographic database covering the journal and research literature in the field of education. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, ERIC blends two files: Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE), covering the published journal literature from over 775 periodicals and Resources in Education (RIE), covering other research document literature, such as conference papers, books, theses, and research reports.

Family Studies & Human Ecology

Family & Society Studies Worldwide This link opens in a new window
A core resource providing the most comprehensive coverage of research, policy, and practice literature in the fields of Family Science, Human Ecology, Human Development, and Social Welfare. FSSW covers popular issues and meets the requirements of professionals in all fields of social work, social science and family practice.

Gender Studies

Gender Studies Database This link opens in a new window
Gender Studies Database combines NISC's popular Women's Studies International and Men's Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues. GSD covers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia.

Gerontology

AgeLine This link opens in a new window
AgeLine focuses exclusively on the population aged 50+ and issues of aging. AgeLine is the premier source for the literature of social gerontology and includes aging-related content from the health sciences, psychology, sociology, social work, economics, and public policy. This database indexes over 600 journals, books, book chapters, reports, dissertations, consumer guides, and educational videos. Publication coverage is from 1978 to the present, with selected coverage from 1966-1977.

Law

Gale OneFile: LegalTrac This link opens in a new window
Access all major law reviews, and specialty law and bar association journals.

Medicine & Nursing

PubMed (Medline) This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
CINAHL is the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. It provides indexing for over 3,000 nursing, allied health, biomedical, and consumer health journals.

Political Science

Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Political Science Complete™ (PSC) contains full text for over 530 journals, and indexing and abstracts for more than 2,900 journals (including top-ranked scholarly journals), many of which are unique to the product. PSC has a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse. The database also features over 340 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 38,000 full-text conference papers, including those of the International Political Science Association (Description as of January 2012).
Left Index This link opens in a new window
The Left Index™ is a complete guide to the diverse literature of the left, with an emphasis on political, economic, social and culturally engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Other topics covered include the labor movement, ecology & environment, race & ethnicity, social & cultural theory, sociology, art & aesthetics, philosophy, history, education, law and globalization. Coverage includes more than 272,000 citations and abstracts (with some full text) and spans from 1982 and earlier to present. Historically significant early Left publications such as The People (est. NY 1891) and The Class Struggle (1931 - 1937) along with classic texts by Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and others, written in the formative years of the Left are also covered.

Public Policy

PAIS International This link opens in a new window
Information in PAIS International and PAIS Archive covers topical public and social issues and the making and evaluating of public policy. Worldwide in geographic scope, PAIS International and PAIS Archive indexes publications in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish that deal with public affairs.

Social Work/Social Services

Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services and related areas including social welfare, social policy and community development.

Sociology

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Coverage is for articles published from 1952-present.

Urban Studies

Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Urban Studies Abstracts includes bibliographic records related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of relevance to the discipline. The index contains more than 45,000 records, selected from both scholarly journals and book chapters within the discipline. This online database indexes the full backrun of the former paper abstract "Sage Urban Studies Abstracts", taking coverage back to 1972.

Article FAQs

How can I access the full text of an article I see listed in a database (e.g. PsycINFO)?

If the full-text of the article is not available in the index you used to locate the citation, use the "Find Text @ MSU" link to automatically search for the full-text.

If Find Text @ MSU does not automatically connect you to the full-text, do a journal/periodical title search in the library catalog to double-check our holdings.

If MSU does not subscribe to the journal in print or electronic, use Inter-Library Loan to request a copy of the article.

Distance students: If you see that MSU has the journal in print, use ILLiad to request a copy.

How do I find the full text if I just have an article citation?

Look up the title of the journal where the article is published in the library catalog. Then, access the article via our print or electronic journal holdings.

For a complete step-by-step through the process go to the full tutorial on Locating a Known Journal Article from a Citation.

What kind of advanced search commands can I use in the library databases?

View this document on Advanced Searches for an explanation of various advanced search commands.

MSU Libraries

Research Guides

Human Development & Family Studies Library Resources: Scholarly Articles