Types of Articles
The resources recommended on this page are good starting points to find both scholarly and popular articles for your research projects.
Many of your instructors will require you to use scholarly articles (also called peer-reviewed or academic journal articles) in your research. Peer review is a process scholarly writing goes through prior to publication, in which subject matter experts review and make suggestions for revision to ensure that the research meets rigorous standards for the field. See the video below for a walk-through of the process.
Popular sources include newspaper and magazine articles, reports, blogs, radio shows, etc.
What is Peer Review?
General Searching in Scout
Scout is UA Libraries' main search tool. You can imagine it sitting on top of all the libraries' resources, and reaching into them to pull out search results. You can use it to search books, journal articles, news, and video from our collections and subscriptions all at once. It's a great place to start your research.
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Scout This link opens in a new window
The University of Alabama's discovery service, searching content from hundreds of electronic databases, print resources from our library catalog, ebooks, videos, news and more.
If your results are overwhelming and you're not finding what you need, try one of the databases below.
Subject Searching in Databases
A database is is a smaller, specialized collection of information that may be organized by subject (social work, nursing) or by item type (newspapers, scholarly journals, ebooks). Searching databases can give you different and more focused results than Scout. It's a good idea to try searching in both Scout and databases to find the best material for your research.
Below, I've recommended a few databases for Social Work to get you started.
Can't find what you're looking for? Use the dropdown menus on the UA Libraries Databases A-Z page to browse more databases by subject and material type.
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Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary database; articles from journals and other publications. coves business, education. history, literature, medicine, philosophy, politics, and technology.
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Sociology Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Provides materials for social behavior and interaction. Topics range from gender identity, marriage and family, to demographics, political sociology, religion and socio-cultural anthropology.
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APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law.
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Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database abstracts and indexes serials and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews.
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InterLibrary Loan 2025
This video will walk you through the steps to request materials through UA Libraries' Interlibrary Loan service.