Types of periodicals

Scholarly journal articles

Written by "experts" in a field, they are often "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" -- meaning that they are evaluated by other independent scholars before being accepted for publication.  These articles are commonly experimental or research-based or an in-depth theoretical or literature review. The clearest and most reliable indicator of a scholarly article is the presence of a lengthy list of references at the end. This lets you know where they got their information and can sometimes lead you to other sources. 

Popular magazines and newspapers

At the other end of the spectrum, these periodicals often report general news and information for an interested audience or the general public. Examples include Just Food Magazine, Time, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper.

Useful for finding articles from scholarly peer-reviewed journals, magazines and trade publications.

Quick Article Search

Use this collection of subject databases to begin your research on a wide variety of aspects of food. See the search example below for how to see which databases have the most articles on your topic. 

Want a specific subject focus? 

Try one of these subject databases to focus your search results on recognized, discipline-specific journal and magazine articles.  

Newspapers

Newspapers are great for finding local or global perspectives.

Want a multi-disciplinary search for articles on your topic?

Here's an example of a search in the Quick Article Search (a set of Ebscohost subject databases). This search will look for articles about labeling practices of genetically modified (or GMO) food products.

The asterisk character finds any (or no) ending of the word. E.g. label asterisk will find label or labels or labeling.

The keywords entered into each of the three search boxes are:

genetically modified or GMO

AND    food

AND     label*

Limit your search results

The search pictured below was limited to articles published in the last 10 years (2015 to 2024) AND to peer-reviewed (scholarly) journal articles.

Which subject database has the most on my topic?

If you want to see which subject database found the most articles on your topic, scroll down the Refine Results column to see a list of the individual databases within the Quick Article Search collection.

1. Check the box before the database to display the articles found in each database. (The same article may have been found in multiple databases.) 
2. Within each database, look at the subject tags assigned to the articles. These may be different in each database.  Adding subject terms to your search is one way to expand your results using OR, or focus your search results using AND. 
3. To search that database: Return to the library homepage and select the Databases button. Select the database title from the "Know what database you want?" menu.

Here are a couple of tip sheets on using advanced features within Webster University Libraries' databases, which include:

• Cite tool: how to generate a citation, e.g., in APA or MLA format
• Folder tool: how to save items to EBSCO folders for future use
• Full-text: where to locate the full text of an article