Your Peer Research & Writing Specialist
Your Peer Research and Writing Specialist (PRWS or "Pro") for the Food Cluster is Katelyn Loh.
Set up a consultation with Katelyn to talk about research, writing, assignments, study skills, and getting settled in the Cluster program and at UCLA!
Office Hours:
Mondays at 10am-12pm
(Rieber Hall, LLC - Lounge)
Appointments: Schedule here
Your Library Liaison
24/7 Research Help
Articles, Journals, and Databases
Quick take
When you find articles for your research, typically these will be scholarly and peer-reviewed. These types of articles are published in journals, and increasingly these journals are electronic and searchable via databases.
Articles: what makes them scholarly?
- Originality: The work represents an original, unique argument that is based on carefully cited research.
- Expertise: The author(s) is an expert in their field and usually has a terminal degree (PhD, MFA, etc.).
- Specialized publication: The publication is typically (but not always!) intended for a narrow audience comprised of specialists (e.g., a scholarly journal).
- Peer review: Most scholarly journals adhere to the principle of peer review. Before an article is selected for publication, it is read by other experts in its field and critiqued for the quality of its arguments and research methods.
Journals: where scholarly articles live
Journals are specialized publications that publish scholarly research. Gaining expertise in a subject area typically involves learning which journals publish research relevant to that field. For undergraduate research, you will usually access journals via databases, though it can be helpful to explore certain individual titles (see the "Food Studies eJournals" box for titles relevant to the Food Cluster).
Databases: where journals live
The UCLA Library provides access to hundreds of databases where you can search for scholarly articles.
- For a comprehensive overview of how to select and search databases for your research, see Choosing and Using Library Databases
- For database recommendations relevant to the Food Cluster, see below!
Food Cluster Database Recommendations
Subject-specific databases
- AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) This link opens in a new windowCreated by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators, AGRICOLA covers materials in all formats, including printed works from the 15th century. The records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines.
- Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new windowCoverage of the agricultural and environmental sciences, including scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, and government publications. Includes the AGRICOLA, TOXLINE, Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management, Ecology Abstracts, and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) databases. Can also be searched as part of the Natural Science Collection.
- America: History & Life This link opens in a new windowHistorical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Indexes articles from over 1,700 history journals published worldwide since 1964.
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowContains records from Anthropological Literature and Anthropological Index for journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, ethnography, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies. Covers the late 19th century to the present.
- APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new windowAbstracts and citations to journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, and dissertations relevant to students, researchers, and professionals working in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences.
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new windowCollection of scholarly, government, and general-interest titles which include content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations, and local/national governments and what can be done on each level to minimize negative impact. Topics: global warming, green building, ecology, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records.
- PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
International coverage of articles, books, conference proceedings, and government documents on social and political policy, political science, public administration, current affairs, and related topics from 1972 to the present. Includes PAIS Archive, which covers 1915 to 1976.
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
Citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Also searches NCBI's integrated molecular biology databases, including nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system. Note: This link uses a special address which turns on Get it at UC. Without that, PubMed does not link to UCLA's online subscriptions.
Interdisciplinary Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database that indexes over 10,000 publications, with the complete text of over 5,500 periodicals, including a mix of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text back issues of core scholarly journals, browsable and searchable across multiple disciplines. Coverage starts with first issue, with moving wall for most recent 3-5 years. UCLA has access to selected JSTOR e-books only. JSTOR also includes primary source collections, including images from Artstor.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Full text of current issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. UCLA has access to Muse e-books published from 2017-present, plus a selected number of other e-book titles.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new windowIndex to doctoral dissertations from 1637 to the present, with abstracts since 1980. A number of master's theses are also indexed, with abstracts since 1988. Many are available for download in pdf format. UCLA has access to all full text dissertations in the database. Non-UCLA users may use Dissertations Express to purchase digital or print copies of individual dissertations.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of most disciplines. Indexes major journals with all cited references captured. Combines the following citation databases: Science Citation Index Expanded; Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI); Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI); Conference Proceedings Citation Index.
