Xavier University: Library: Journal Guides: Sociology

(EBSCO A to Z) contains all of the electronic journals in most of the library's research databases and full-text journal collections, as well as journals Xavier has in paper format and electronic books. Search for a particular journal title using title begins with, title contains, or exact match. Browse for a journal using the alphabetical display or search for a journal by subject category. Advanced search permits searches by publisher, ISSN, and subjects. Truncate words with an asterisk (*) to retrieve word variants. Results provide links to the research database(s) or electronic journal collection(s) that index the journal and include the years covered and embargo period (if there is one). If the journals is not available in electronic format, it provides links to XPLORE for print and microform holdings, and if the journal is not at Xavier in any format it provides links to ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan). Instructions are available for accessing articles within databases and from bibliographies. It is compiled by and the user interface is provided by EBSCO Publishing.

The following journals were purchased by the sociology department and are available in the library in print and/or microform format. Search XPLORE by title if you do not see the journal you need. Click the journal title link to see what volumes and issues Xavier has.

Journals Not at Xavier

Use ILLiad to request an article from a journal the library does not have in electronic format. New ILLiad users will need to set up an account. Articles may take 1-14 days to arrive. You will be notified of their arrival in your Xavier email account.

Resources for evaluating Journals

Cabell's Directories provides full-text directory information for business, education, psychology/psychiatry, and computer science/information systems journal publications. Each journal entry includes submission information (editor’s name, address, phone, fax, email, web address); publication guidelines (manuscript length, copies required, format, fees, style, computer submission); circulation data (reader type, frequency, number of subscribers, publisher, price); review information (type of reveiws, number of in-house and external reviewers, acceptance rate, time it takes to review, percent of invited articles, reviewers coments, publishing fees); manuscript topics included; and manuscript guidelines. To begin searching click Member Area in the menubar. It is produced by and the user interface is provided by Cabell Publishing, Inc.

Eigenfactor.org ranks the most influential journals using citations in the academic literature as tallied by JCR (Journal Citation Reports). Users can search by journal name or subject category and limit their searches to a particular year from 1995-2006. There is a subject category mapping tool and top ten lists for major categores (science, social science, university theses). There is also a journal cost-effectiveness seach by subject category. It is produced by and the user interface is provided by the Bergstrom Lab, Department of Biology, University of Washington.

Journal Citation Reports (alternative link; 2006-present) is one of the databases included in Web of Knowledge. Click Select a Database to search it separately. This databases permits users to evaluate and compare journals using 2006 citation data drawn from over 7,500 scholarly and technical journals form more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries. The science edition contains data from over 5,900 journals and the social science edition over 1,700 journals. It can show you the most frequently cited journals in a field, the highest impact journals in a field and the largest journals in a field. Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. It is produced by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and the user interface is provided by Thomson.

Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (full-text directory information) contains information on currently published as well as discontinued periodicals. It includes magazines, journals, newsletters, newspapers, conference proceedings, and electronic publications. Each entry includes a description, publisher, country of publication, ISSN, start year, status (active or inactive), price, frequency, ending issue, if refereed, format (print or electronic), if abstracted or indexed, where abstracted or indexed, language, editor, URL, and reviews. It is produced by and the user interface is provided by R.R. Bowker.

Criteria for Evaluating Scholarly vs. Popular Journals