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Article databases: searching by AUTHOR

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Searching the article databases BY AUTHOR

Suppose that you knew the author of an article that you would like to find, but you didn't know where to find it. For example, you want to find an article about the Summer 2003 wildfires in British Columbia by Dane Lanken, but you didn't know the title of the article, which journal published it, or even when it was published. In this situation, you will want to do an author search in an article database to find the full citation information (i.e., author, journal title, volume, issue number, date of publication, and pages).
Databases might look different, but they all function in largely the same way, so once you know how to do a author search in one database, you should be able to do it in all of them.

1. Select a Database

The first step is to decide which article database is most likely to have the information that you require. For example, if it is the author tends to publish in the field of psychology, take a look at PsycINFO. If you need help in knowing which databases are the most apporpriate for each discipline, see our Subject/Research Guides. To find Dane Lanken's article, we are going to look at Academic Search Complete because it is a interdisciplinary database that covers a wide array of subject areas.

One you have decided on the database that you need, go to the Article Databases page, scroll down until you find the database that you want, and then click on the title to open the database.

2. Enter your search terms

Type the author's name in the search box (last name and then first name), and select "Author" from the dropdown box. Press the Search button.

 

3. View the resulting record(s)


 

4. Find out if TRU library has this journal.

To find out how to check this, see the TRU Library tutorial " Using "Where Can I Get This?" to locate articles."

5. Don't be afraid to ask for help!

If you have any questions, Ask a Question! We are here to help.