Guides and databases: English: Journals and E-journals

Types of periodical publications

Academic (or scholarly) journals are used to disseminate scholarly information that relates to a particular academic discipline. They are aimed at researchers and are often peer-reviewed, which means that articles are evaluated by experts in the field to ensure the information in them is accurate. An example of an academic journal is the Shakespeare Survey.

Magazines are aimed at a more general audience than academic journals and can include opinions and news items too. An example of a magazine is the Times Literary Supplement.

Newspapers are published on a daily or weekly basis, the focus of these is on news items. An example of a newspaper is The Guardian.

Key journals in English Language and Literature

Key bibliographies in English Language and Literature

If you need to go beyond what UCL holds and conduct a more comprehensive search of what has been published, use these bibliographies:

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
Part of Literature Online (LION). Accessibility statement for Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL).
International Medieval Bibliography
Index of literature on all subjects relating to the Middle Ages, within the date range 400-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Linguistics Abstracts Online
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. Index of articles from linguistics journals. Includes abstracts.
MLA International Bibliography
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to EBSCOhost. International database on language, literature, linguistics and folklore.
Oxford Bibliographies
UCL has access to the African Studies, American Literature, Anthropology, Architecture Planning & Preservation, Art History, Atlantic History, Biblical Studies, British and Irish Literature, Childhood Studies, Chinese Studies, Cinema & Media Studies, Classics, Communication, Criminology, Ecology, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Geography, International Law, International Relations, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, Literary & Critical Theory, Medieval Studies, Military History, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Renaissance & Reformation, Sociology, Urban Studies and Victorian Literature modules. Accessibility statement for Oxford Bibliographies Online.
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900
Wellesley assists scholars in assessing the significance of Victorian periodical articles by delivering accurate information on their provenance. Wellesley is an index to the authorship of articles, and a bibliography of articles written by each contributor, using each pseudonym.
World Shakespeare Bibliography
Provides annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced between 1960 and 2016.

Finding the full-text

If you're using one of our databases to find journal articles, you might not be able to read the article within the database itself. If you see the Findit@UCL icon, click on it to link to the full-text

Sometimes you will see a link to the publisher's site. Unless the article is open access, you might find that you can't reach the full-text.

Clicking on the Findit@UCL link instead will link you to the full-text via UCL's subscription access, if available.

If you're using Google Scholar you can set up the Library Links feature so that it will display a findit@UCL link to help show you which articles are available via UCL subscriptions.

Managing the journals you read: Browzine

UCL subscribes to Browzine, a resource that allows you to organise UCL's academic journals in a browsable format, displayed on virtual bookshelves. Browzine is a great tool to help stay up to date with new content, and bookmark articles that you want to read in the future.