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Taught Postgraduates support

Support for Masters and other taught postgraduate students

What are periodicals and why are they important?

As a postgraduate student your supervisor will be looking for evidence that you have used a wide range of resources in your studies.  Periodicals can provide up to date, specialised information on your research topic.  There are three main types of periodical.

  • Academic Journals
  • Magazines - both general and professional
  • Newspapers

You must decide which is the best for your research - it may be that a combination of all three is most appropriate but this depends on the discipline in which you are researching.  

Looking for a particular journal title?

We provide access to a huge range of journals in all subject areas, most of them online. If you are looking for a particular e-journal title e.g. American Economist, then use this link:

Journals A to Z

Once you have found the journal you want you can search within it for articles.

Can't find the article you need?

Sometimes when you are doing research you may come across an article in a journal that you are unable to access at Staffordshire University in either print or electronic format.  This is usually because the Library does not subscribe to that title. 

In these circumstances we offer two options to allow you to get a copy of an article free of charge.  The best place to start is to look at the Request a Digital Copy service. If you cannot get the article you need through this route you can opt to use our Document Delivery Service.  Visit our Document Delivery webpage for details.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar can be a very useful tool for alerting you to what has been published.  Please remember that not all output listed in Google Scholar is available free of charge so you may need to apply for a copy through our Document Delivery Service.  Sometimes it can be worth contacting the author who may be able to provide you with a free copy.

Google Scholar Search

Freely available Scholarly Resources

Not all research is hidden behind paywalls and subscription models. The following resources give you access to freely-available scholarly research across multiple disciplines:

University of Staffordshire Library Search allows you to discover more open access research, along with the extensive range of print and electronic resources offered via the University of Staffordshire Library catalogue.

University of Staffordshire Online Repository (STORE) provides access to a collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly works deposited by University of Staffordshire academics alongside doctoral thesis submitted by postgraduate researchers.

arXiv has over 2.4 million research papers and documents that are available to search covering subjects including Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics.

BASE is one of the world's leading search engines especially for academic web resources. Over 414 million documents are available to search here from over 11,500 providers.

CORE offers access to over 317 million open access research papers by aggregating all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide.

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) houses a collection of over 88.500 Open Access books from a range of subjects and publishers

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is an online directory that indexes and provides access to over 20,000 open access, peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of  subjects.

Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide, curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions.

Google Scholar provides a fast and simple way to search for scholarly literature which includes journal articles, pre-published papers and more. 

Jstor Open Content provides Open Access to books and journals from top scholarly publishers, including Brill, Cornell University Press, University College of London, and University of California Press, as well as public domain journal content published before 1923 in the United States (and prior to 1870 elsewhere).

Oapen Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences

OpenDOAR is a global Directory of Open Access Repositories. You can search and browse through thousands of registered repositories based on a range of features, such as location, software or type of material held.

ROAD: Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources is a UNESCO funded project to create a directory of Open Access publications, including journals, conferences and annuals, that have been awarded an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number). You can search for publications but not their content.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) provides 1,480,752 research papers from 1,916,372 researchers in more than 65 disciplines.

Unpaywall is a plug-in for Chrome and Firefox that identifies and locates open-access articles and presents paywalled papers that have been legally archived and are freely available on other websites to users who might otherwise have hit a paywalled version.

SCOPUS

scopus logoScopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.

Once you have logged in with your university ID, please also register for an individual account, as this gives you access to more personalised features including permissions to save and download searches.

Theses Online

Access UK academic theses through EThOS - the British Library electronic theses online service.  You can search a database of UK theses by institution, author and keywords and order theses online

In addition to the information from the British Library we have created some guidance on alternatives ways to access doctoral theses while access to to EThOS is disrupted.

Grey literature

Grey literature is a wide ranging body of research information that is not produced and reviewed by commercial publishers.

Grey literature can be a very important research resource, often recording niche or emerging research.

You should make your own assessment for quality, reliability and potential bias when selecting grey literature for inclusion in your research projects.