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Business and Economics: Journal articles

For students undertaking Accounting, Banking & Finance, Business, Law & Taxation, Economics, Econometrics & Business Statistics, Management and Marketing at Monash University

Effectively searching for, reading and using journal articles in your assignments and academic projects are key academic skills. 

This page:

  • introduces key databases for exploring the journal literature in business and economics
  • describes academic and non-academic journal articles
  • includes advice and short tutorials on database searching and locating and reading journal articles. 

For in-depth advice on effective information research for assignments and research projects go to Finding and evaluating information.

Databases for journal articles

See this tutorial to learn how to search Business Source Complete, or read the Accessibility document.

About academic and non-academic journals

Academic journals

Academic or scholarly journal articles are the primary means for academics to report their research to other experts and collectively build knowledge in that field.

Before acceptance for publication in an academic journal, an article must typically pass "peer review". In this process, other experts in the field assess the value and quality of the article. Peer review is a form of quality control practiced across all disciplines, aiming to maintain the highest possible standards of research.

To learn more about the key features of an academic journal article and how to read them, view this brief tutorial, or read the accessibilty document.

Non-academic journals

Non-academic journals can provide current business and economic news and practical examples that relate to the theory and research discussed in the academic literature. These types of journals include trade, industry or professional magazines. 

Non-academic journals are journalistic in style and often contain images and advertising. Articles are typically short (1-3 pages) and usually do not include references.

Non-academic articles are classified as Magazines or Trade Publications in the Business Source Complete database, and as Magazines or Trade Journals in the ProQuest database.

Finding a known article

Academic journal articles include a review of relevant academic literature, as well as references to other works used to support the arguments being expressed. Often links to an article's references are provided in the article database record, or in the online article itself, making it easy to access the full text of a reference.

If you want to find an article from a citation: 

  1. Go to Search.
  2. Click Journals A - Z, enter the journal or news source title (not the article title) in quotation marks e.g. “journal of management”, and click Go.
  3. From the retrieved record, access the online version, where available, and drill down to the relevant volume and issue.