Two Types of Periodical Databases
Your choice of periodical databases depends on your topic.

1. Interdisciplinary databases - also called multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary or general databases
**Hint: A discipline is like a major field or subject area like history or psychology.

• Is your topic general or cross-disciplinary?
• Currently in the news?

If so, start with one of the interdisciplinary periodical databases. Some of these index just scholarly journals, some index both popular magazines and scholarly journals. These cover a wide range of subjects and often index a mixture of popular and scholarly sources. This is often a good place to begin research. Examples of interdisciplinary periodical databases and the kinds of articles they identify are:

	Academic Search Premier	Indexes articles from scholarly journals on most areas of academic study. Many articles are full text. Some indexing goes back to 1975.
	Newspaper Source	Indexes full text articles from over 25 U.S. and international newspapers, and selected full text from over 200 regional newspapers as well as full text television and radio news transcripts.
	MasterFILE Premier	Indexes full text articles from popular magazines on many topics. Indexing for some reference books, images and biographies are also included. Covers 1975 to present.
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