There are 2 main possibilities when you're looking for articles: either you've got a topic and need to find articles on your topic OR you have a specific, known article and you want to just get THAT article:

Look for articles on a topic:

  • Start with Omni (You can also try one of our subject-specific databases listed on our Subject Guides with a full list on our Databases page)
  • Try to search for keywords or phrases rather than sentences. See our Help with Omni for tips and examples
  • Use one or more of the Omni filters (left side of screen) to limit your results to just articles:
    • filter Resource Type to: Articles
    • In needed, filter Availability to: Peer Reviewed
    • You can also further refine results, for example filter Publication Date to last 5 years and/or filter Journal Title to see all articles from a specific journal.
  • Click on the title of an article in the result list to see more information and access the article
    [make sure to login to your account so you see all the options].
    On the detail screen you can:
    • Scan the article Subject words and Description for other words/phrases that may be useful in a search
    • Look at the Related Articles on the right
    • Remember that a good search is iterative: use results of your initial search to help find more related articles
    • Access the article via the "available online" link.
    • If Carleton does not have a print or online subscription, use the option to request a digital copy

Look for a specific article

Whether it's an article your professor has recommended to you, or you find an interesting article in the reference list of another resource, sometimes you have a known item that you just want to find quickly. There are a few ways you can do this.

Look up the article title in Omni

  • Copy & paste/type in the title of the article (usually found after the author(s) name(s) in the citation) into Omni:

    Rith-Najarian, Boustani, M. M., & Chorpita, B. F. (2019). A systematic review of prevention programs targeting depression, anxiety, and stress in university students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 257, 568–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.06.035

Look up the DOI

  • Most journal articles now come with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) which is a unique string for each article
  • Copy the DOI, and paste it into your browser:

    Rith-Najarian, Boustani, M. M., & Chorpita, B. F. (2019). A systematic review of prevention programs targeting depression, anxiety, and stress in university students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 257, 568–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.06.035

    NOTE: This method works best if you are on campus since the DOI link is not passed through our proxy server. This means that if you are off-campus, you may FIND the article this way, but you may not be able to access the pdf

Look up the Journal Name in Omni

  • Use Omni's Journal search to look up the full name of the journal (Some citation styles, especially in STEM, use journal title abbreviations. Find the full title by doing a journal title abbreviation search, or by searching Google.)

    Rith-Najarian, Boustani, M. M., & Chorpita, B. F. (2019). A systematic review of prevention programs targeting depression, anxiety, and stress in university students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 257, 568–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.06.035
  • From your results, click on the journal name to open the detail screen
  • There may be more than one link to connect to the journal: use a link that will include the year/volume that you need
  • Once connected to the journal's main web page you can either:
    • use the search box on the journal page to look up the article title, or the author name(s) OR
    • look for a link to all of the different volumes and issues of the journal. It may be called "archives" or "back issues". You can then browse to the correct year, volume, issue or page numbers you need.
    • In our example above, the article is in volume 257, and can be found on pages 568-584

Can't find/access the article or journal in Omni

  • If not already done, select the "add resources beyond Carleton's collection" box:

    Omni result highlighting the "available online" link and the "add resources beyond Carleton's collection"

  • If you find what you're looking for but Omni tells you it's "Unavailable Online" you can use the link on the detail screen to order a pdf copy

  • If the article does not show up in Omni at all, you can still request a pdf copy, but you'll have to do it via our Interlibrary Loans Service.

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