Engineering (Basic)

Articles provide a short treatment (1-20 pages) on a topic and appear in newspapers, popular magazines, trade magazines and academic journals.   Because of their brevity, articles may be published quicker than a scholarly book, so they are a good place to find recent information. 

View this online tutorial to find out more about the different types of articles. (4m 33s)

To find articles, there's no need to do tedious, time-consuming browsing of one journal or publisher at a time.  Search thousands of journals, magazines and/or newspapers at the same time by using these databases:

• Library One Search
• Compendex
• Inspec

The Library One Search is the best place to start if you're trying to find material on a topic and want more than one content type (books, journal articles, magazine articles, etc.) to be retrieved.  Library One Search also let's you search anything (topic, title, author, etc.) from a single search box; an advanced search feature is also available.  When viewing a results list, use the options in the right column to refine or re-focus the results. Anything the ASU Library does not own may be requested through Interlibrary Loan.

Didn't find enough journal articles using "Library One Search"?  Try some of the databases specifically designed to help you retrieve engineering material:​

Notes:

Compendex and Inspec are on the same search platform (Engineering Village) and may be searched together at the same time; simply select one of the databases with which to enter the system. You automatically search both unless you UNCHECK one of them.

Specialty databases for specific areas of engineering may be available.   Click on the "Advanced Guides" tab to see a list of guides for specific areas within engineering; look for "How to Find Articles" to see a list of indexing databases for that specific area. 

Already have a citation for an article?  Here's how to find the article in the ASU Library. 

Citations for articles usually contain the following components, although not necessarily in this order:

• Author(s) of the article
• Title of the Article (may not be included in older citations) 
• Title of the Journal (may be spelled out in full or abbreviated) 
• Volume number
• Issue number (may not be included if volume is consecutively paged)
• Page numbers
• Date of Publication

Examples: 

1. D. C. Forward, "Designing London's Tower Bridge," Mechanical Engineering, vol. 117, pp. 80-83, 1995.
    
2. Petroski, H. (1995). Tower bridge. American Scientist, 83(2), 121-124.
    
3. Xu, Y. L., J. M. Ko, and Z. Yu. Modal Analysis of Tower-Cable System of Tsing Ma Long Suspension Bridge. Engineering Structures, Vol. 19, No. 10, 1997, pp. 857-867  

To determine if an article is available from the ASU Library use either (or both) of these methods:

Method #1: Quick and Easy (but it can't find everything)

1. Go to the ASU Library home page at http://lib.asu.edu
2. In the "Library One Search" box (in the center of the screen) put the title of the article.   For long titles, the first 5-6 words should be sufficient.
3. Look in the results list for the article; it will mostly likely be the first or second item in the list.  If needed, a long results list may be shortened by adding more words from the title in the search box or using the "Content Type" refine option in the left column to "article"
4. Click on the title to see if there are any full-text options available or if the article is available in print you can view the library's holdings and either submit a document delivery request or visit the library's location in person. 

Method #2: Can Find Everything (but takes a little longer)

1. Go to the ASU Library home page at http://lib.asu.edu
2. Click on the drop down box next to the "Library One Search" box; and select "Journal Titles"
3. Put the title of the journal in the box and click search
4. If the ASU Library has access to at least some of the journal volumes online, the title of the journal will be listed with a (Online) designation next to the title.  
5. Some of the journals may be available online, in print or parts of both, in which case the record may show that multiple versions exist. 
6. You may click on the title of the journal to view the library print holdings if the journal is available in print along with the years and location of those print copies.
7. If the year/volume of the journal you need is available online, click on the appropriate link and then at the journal site use the year, volume, issue and page number information from the citation to locate the article.

If the article you need is available only in print or microfilm at a different ASU Library ... 
Request the article via the Interlibrary Loan service and we'll scan a copy, put it in your account, and then notify you via email when it's available -- no charge!  

If the ASU Library doesn't have the journal article you need in any format (online, print or microfilm) ...
Request the article via the Interlibrary Loan service, we'll find a library that has it, they'll scan it into your account, and we'll notify you via email when it's available -- no charge!  

And don't forget - whenever a journal article is not available online, "Get It @ ASU" will display an "Option 2" on its screen - click on this option, login to your ILL account, and the computer will automatically fill in the article request form for you!  All you have to do is click "Submit."

More details about the Interlibrary Loan service are available.