Resources for Student Inquiry and Research

Reputable Internet Sources

Content of general internet sites must always be checked carefully before being used as an official resource. Generally, material from reputable sources will be found in locations having a suffix such as ".edu" ".gov" or ".org" on the site's path name. Material from sites ending in ".com" may or may not be biased and should always be verified with other sources. Below you will find a few examples of helpful resources.

Journals and Information on the Internet

More and more professional journals are becoming available on the Internet. You may be able to purchase a specific article from an internet journal or service for a fee. Sometimes these resources are available for free only if you have a subscription to that journal. The IMSA Information Resource Center (IRC) subscribes to several services that provide free access to IMSA staff and students. Before purchasing an article from a journal, check with the Information Resource Center (IRC) for their full list of online subscriptions. Occasionally, some journals have free access to all content, or free access to issues before a specified date.

If you have suggestions for other reputable sites that should be added to the following list, please contact the SIR Coordinator.

Search Engines

Primary Literature Searches

Sites providing links to Journal Publishers

There are many web sites, some privately maintained, which list journal publishers for a specific discipline and provide links to those journals. Many journal sites are searchable, however some searches may cover only a specific journal and not across a discipline. Following are some examples:

Journals for Free Full-Text Articles

Although policies on fees can, and do, change, the following have provided free full-text articles on work documented in their journals: