If you have a citation from your professor you will need to find out if the library owns the journal/magazine that the article appears in. To do this make sure you have the citation in front of you. An example would be:
Author, Date, Article Title, Title of Journal/Magazine, Volume, Issue/Number, Pages
Once you have the citation (author, journal/magazine title, year, etc.), there are several ways to determine if UCF provides access to the full-text of the article. The availability of the full-text of electronic articles is constantly changing, so try a number of these different methods.
OPTION 1: Check the UCF Online Journal Subscriptions
To successfully use the Online Journals feature, you must be connected directly to UCF or have the
EZProxy 
activated.
Select Online Journals from the UCF Library Home Page. (The link will appear in the left column from the EZProxy’s “you have logged in successfully.")
You can choose to enter the title of a specific journal or browse through the list of electronic journals. After you find the journal you need click on the hypertext title of the journal. The SFX window will open, which identifies databases that may provide the full text of your article. Click on the database to go directly to the journal.
OPTION 2: Check the UCF Library Catalog
Select Books/Catalog from the UCF Library Home Page.
Click on the tab for Journals/Serials.
Type the journal title in the box by “Browse Organized Lists”.
If found, look at the record to see if an electronic version is available and click on the hypertext link. If the source of the full-text article requires it, you must be connected directly to UCF or through EZProxy first for the hypertext link to work (After clicking on the hypertext link you may need to login with your library card number, located on your UCF Card).
OPTION 3: Check the Journal’s Internet Web Site
A publisher will sometimes provide full-text to a journal or to selected articles. UCF may also have full-text privileges from a journal’s web site and the information has not yet been entered into the catalog or online journal subscription list. Use an Internet search engine (e.g., Google or All the Web) to search for the journal title or the complete citation.
Database Searching
If you do not have a specific citation but rather a topic, try searching the library databases to identify relevant and scholarly magazine/journal articles for your research. Library databases are organized collections of information that the library pays for and that can be accessed online. You must be connected directly to UCF or have the EZProxy activated to search a database.
When you are searching databases for a topic, and want to find articles available electronically in full-text, there are a number of features you might want to investigate that are part of the UCF Library’s web page or provided by databases.
To begin, click on Articles and Databases from the UCF Library Home Page. You can access the databases either alphabetically or by subject. If you are not sure which databases would be the most useful for your subject, choose the subject guide.
Databases often provide options to limit your search. Limiting your search to “full-text only” is never recommended. The full text of many articles will be available to you by using the SFX button. Limiting your search to “full-text only” will eliminate many articles available online through another database provider.
Sometimes you can link to full-text articles within the database. Click on any links that say HTML full-text or PDF full-text. If you do not see a full-text option, click on the SFX button.
Most of the UCF databases participate in the SFX service . SFX links the resources of participating databases together. So, if one database does not provide the full-text of an article, the SFX button will display a list in a new window of other UCF databases that may provide full-text. Please note that inclusion of the SFX button does not mean that full-text is available; it simply means the database participates in the service. Also, when you limit a search to “full-text only” in a database, you will be excluding full-text identified by SFX in other UCF databases. Hence, the warning: Never limit your search to “full text only”! Use the SFX button to find the full text!
If you need further assistance locating a journal article or finding information on your topic please contact the Ask A Librarian Service or stop by the Reference Desk! We also have some General Research Videos available online 24/7
