LibGuides: Religious Studies: Articles & Databases

Finding Scholarly Articles, Dissertations, and Theses

These databases are available from the University Libraries Databases page:

Academic Search Complete
1965-present, semi-scholarly database provides full text and abstracts from over 8000 journals.

Description: Good database for most research topics and contains lots of full text and peer reviewed articles.
Time Period: 1909 to present
Sources: Indexes nearly 20,000 Academic and peer reviewed journals and magazines and provides full text for more than 5,700.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Music, News, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Case Studies, Citations, Conference Papers, Images, Journal Articles, Magazine Articles, News, Other, Reviews
Dissertations and Theses Global
1861 to date. An index to all U.S. dissertations accepted at accredited institutions since 1861.

Description: A key source for discovering doctoral dissertations and master's theses in all fields from around the world. Some 250,000 new dissertations from leading academic institutions are added to the database each year, many with full text and/ or a free 24 page preview. This includes some from Ball State University, others can be found in Cardinal Scholar. The full text may be purchased for most dissertations added since 1997.
Note: Dissertations and theses from other institutions can be obtained at a discount through our Interlibrary Loan department. Contact them for details at (765) 285-1324.

Time Period: 17th century to present
Sources: Indexes nearly 5 million dissertations and theses and includes the full text of 3 million.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Music, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology (Dissertations and Theses)
Scholarly or Popular: Scholarly
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Citations, Dissertation and Theses
JSTOR
Scholarly database provides historic full text access to over 140 important journals in Religious Studies. Often does not contain the most recent years of a journal.

Description: JSTOR allows you to search across approximately 2,000 journal titles from more than 50 disciplines. It contains complete backfiles of scholarly journals starting with the first issues, many of which date back from the 1800s. Although the majority of titles do not have the most recent 3 to 5 years available in full text, there are some which have the current issues available.

Note: Additional content has been permanently added to JSTOR, including archived journal collections and primary resources. Searches performed using the databases page link will include results from the additional sources, as will the link above.

Time Period: 19th century to present
Sources: Provides the full text for approximately 2,000 journals.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Mobile, Music, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Citations, Journal Articles, Reviews
Philosopher's Index
Covers over 680 scholarly journals as well as books and conference proceedings on the topic of philosophy.

Description: Philosophers Index is a key database to philosophy and related disciplines.
Time Period: 1940's to present
Sources: Indexes more than 1,500 journals.
Subject Headings: History, Humanities, Mobile, Philosophy & Religion (Philosophy)
Primary Materials: Journal articles, books, conference proceedings
Religion and Philosophy Collection
Description: Religion and Philosophy Collection provides access to scholarly journals and magazines related to an array of topics connected with religion, church history, and philosophy; including ethics, logic, and epistemology.
Time Period: 1960's to present
Sources: Indexes more than 260 journals and magazines, 222 of which are peer-reviewed, and 207 are in full text.
Subject Headings: Philosophy and Religion
Primary Materials: Journal Articles, Magazine Articles

Finding News and Current Events Related to Religious Studies

These databases are available from the University Libraries Articles & Databases page:

Access World News
1977-present, popular database provides full text from over 1400 major U.S., regional, and international newspapers and magazines.

Description: Articles from 1,000's of newspapers around the world. Provides full text access to many local and regional newspapers in the U.S. Also contains magazine articles, transcripts, videos, and other sources.
Time Period: 1977 to present
Sources: Contains articles from 3,200 sources including newspapers, blogs, and magazines.
Subject Headings: General, News
Primary Materials: Audio, Citations, Magazine Articles, News, Reviews, Trade Publications, Transcripts, Videos
Nexis Uni
semi-scholarly database provides full text frome more than 32,000 legal, news and business sources.

Description: Nexis Uni provides access to newspaper articles, magazine articles, and transcripts. It is also a key database for business and legal research, containing company reports, law journals, and statutes and cases from all 50 states. Also contains legal resources for Canada and the EU.
Time Period: 18th century to present
Sources: Searches more than 15,000 sources.
Subject Headings: Business, General, Law, News, Social Sciences
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Citations, Journal Articles, Legal Materials, Magazine Articles, News, Reference Resources, Report, Transcripts
Newspaper Source Plus
1995-present, index to recent newspaper and TV or radio news reports. Full text and abstracts.

Description: Newspaper Source Plus indexes recent newspapers and TV or radio news reports. Includes the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, New York Times, and many regional or local newspapers. Full text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, FOX News, NPR, etc.
Time Period: 1995-present (many newspapers only 2000-present)
Sources: Approximately 1,000 newspapers
Subject Headings: News
Primary Materials: News

Find It @ Ball State: Helping you find the full text of the title you want

What's "Find It"?

When you' button with this text: "Find It @ Ball State" re using a database, and can't find a link to the full text of an article, look for a Find It @ Ball State button, sometimes under "Access Options."

Find It helps you to search the Libraries' other databases and subscriptions to see if the full text is available through another resource.

If it is available, Find It provides a link to the text of the article.
If it cannot find the full-text, Find It provides a link to Interlibrary Loan so that you can request that we get a copy of the article from another library.

To use Find It, click on the red Find It @ Ball State button. (Sometimes you must click on "Access Options" to see "Find it @ Ball State.")

If we DO have full text access to the article, a page will be displayed with options for access under "Full Text Format Options." The typical options are:

PDF: the file format reflecting the formatting for a printed page
Link: taking you to the webpage version of the article

red arrow pointing to area with Full Text Format Options

If we do NOT have immediate full text access to the article, the OneSearch record for the article will be displayed.

Look under "Links" for "Request this item with InterLibrary Loan / ILLiad."
Click there, and log in with your Ball State username and password.
More information about placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

Links "Request the item with Interlibrary Loan / ILLiad"