Some research areas do not produce scholarly journals. Fields like firefighting, sound equipment sales, and hotel management produce trade journals or professional journals instead. Trade and professional journals are:
- Written by experts, but these are usually not people with PhDs working in academia; instead, they are experts who are employed in the trade or profession
- Written for experts, but again, the readers are not necessarily scholars; they are individuals working in that trade or profession
- Not peer reviewed or editorially reviewed; instead, they are more like magazines that have editors
You have a few options for locating articles from these types of sources:
- Visit the website of a professional association in your field of study and see what publications they feature. For example, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) features Fire Fighter International Magazine. If you are able to read articles via their website, great.
If not, conduct a "Journal Search" on the library website to see if our library subscribes to that publication.
- Search for a library database in your field of study. To do this, under the "Find & Search" tab on the library website, choose "Resources by Subject." Select the guide affiliated with your field of study and view databases listed on the landing page of that guide. From there, do the following:
- Select a database and click the Advanced Search option (usually next to or below the basic search box).
- Scroll the advanced search features until you find "Source Type," "Publication Type," or something similar.
- Then scroll through the options until you see "Trade Journal." Click that, enter your keywords in the search boxes above, and click Search.
- If the database you choose does not offer "Trade Journals" as an option, select a different database from the subject guide list and try again.
