Research Guides: Documentary Film: Finding Articles

Finding Articles

EBSCO Discovery Service This link opens in a new window
EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) encompasses articles in databases across many disciplines. Users can locate peer reviewed articles, videos, audio files, images, and more from a range of subjects.

Full download of DRM-protected ebooks requires EBSCO account registration and Adobe Digital Editions.
Note: NYU Libraries is retiring EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) in June 2025. The Catalog Search replaces EDS as the tool for searching across multiple publishers’ databases and platforms. You can also use EBSCOhost to search across the full set of EBSCO-only databases.

A very large database that covers all subject areas. You will need to use the bar on the left hand side of the page to narrow the results. Listed below are other databases that you may want to use.

ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR provides access to scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to journal articles, users can access book chapters, ebooks, and primary source documents.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
Sage Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Psychology (SAGE) includes the full text of 35 journals published by SAGE and participating societies. I covers subjects such as Applied Psychology, Assessment, Child Development, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, Environmental Psychology, Family Studies, Group Work, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Language Acquisition, Latin American Studies, Learning Disabilities, Measurement, Neuropsychology, Personality, Philosophical Psychology, Psychiatry, Psychology of Diversity, School Psychology, Social Psychology, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.
OmniFile Full Text Mega This link opens in a new window
OmniFile Full Text Mega is a Multi-disciplinary database providing the complete content - indexing, abstracts, and full text - from six collections: Education Full Text, General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Wilson Business Full Text. Dates of coverage: 1982 to present.
Education Source with ERIC This link opens in a new window
The two main databases in education, fully searchable together, via one interface. Provides citations to educational materials in well over 1,000 journals and thousands of non-journal sources.
Religion Database (ATLA) This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive database designed to support religious and theological scholarship. The file contains citations from international titles and 13,000 multi-author works in and related to the field of religion. Dates of coverage: 1949 to the present.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
A full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. Dates of coverage: 1970 to present.
Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts academic and trade journals in communications and mass media. Full-text is included for some titles. Conference proceedings are also available, including those of the International Communication Association.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Full text business database, covering management, economics, finance, accounting, international business. Dates of coverage: 1886 to present.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy. Coverage is international. Date coverage: 1975 to present.
Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Indexes core journals plus local and lesser-known journals in social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology; ethnology, archaeology, folklore, and material culture; and interdisciplinary studies. Searches both Anthropological Index and Anthropological Literature. Dates of coverage: Anthropological Index (1957 to present); Anthropological Literature (early 19th century to present.
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes over 3,800 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, with indexing for selected journals back to 1937. Topics covered are related to nursing, physical therapy, health education, social service/healthcare, occupational therapy, and related disciplines. CINAHL also provides access to healthcare books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of professional practice, educational software and audiovisual materials in nursing. Dates of coverage: 1937 to present.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Performing Arts Periodicals Database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 210 international journals in the performing arts dating from 1864 to the near present.
FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) brings together institutions dedicated to rescuing and preserving films. This database contains FIAF's Treasures from Film Archives; a detailed index of the silent-era film holdings of archives from around the world, a selection of Reference volumes and the linked full-text of over 60 journals.
Screen Studies Collection This link opens in a new window
The Screen Studies Collection is a comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside expansive filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database, the American Film Institute, the British Film Institute, and the AFI Catalog and Film Index International.
Screen Studies This link opens in a new window
Starting with an initial collection of nearly 270 screenplays and eBooks and updated annually, Screen Studies includes content by leading screenwriters and award-winning directors; cult and classic films and critical and contextual writing on film history, theory and practice, from the beginnings of cinema to the present day. It also includes practical instruction on screenwriting, TV, animation and filmmaking technique.
Art and Architecture Source This link opens in a new window
Art & Architecture Source is an essential research database for peer-reviewed, full-text art and architecture journals with coverage dating back to 1914. Subjects include fine, decorative, and commercial art, as well as architecture, landscape, urban planning, and architectural design. With strong international coverage, including periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch, it offers hundreds of full-text art journals, magazines, and books, plus detailed indexing and abstracts, and thousands of images. It also includes the contents of Art Index Retrospective (1929-1984), formerly called Art Source.

Cinema Studies
by Rye Gentleman Last Updated Feb 18, 2025 1431 views this year

Documentary Film Jornals

Studies in Documentary Film
Provides information about the history, theory, criticism and practice of documentary film.
Dox : documentary film quarterly
Available in Main Collection: VOLUMES: 5- (YEARS: 1995-) Current Periodicals 3rd Floor

Limiting to "Peer Reviewed" Articles

"Peer-reviewed" or "refereed" journals are those that subject content to a critical review by other experts in the field prior to accepting a manuscript for publication. Limiting your literature search to the peer-reviewed journals ensures a higher level of scholarship and research methodology.

Magazines, trade journals, and newspapers tend to be "non-peer-reviewed," meaning perhaps just the editor or someone who is not an expert in the field has reviewed the content before publishing.

How do you know if a journal citation is from a peer-reviewed journal?

You can do a journal title search in Ulrich's Global Serials Directory.
You can look for the "Limits" feature in many databases to narrow search results by publication type.
Limiting to "peer reviewed" and other publication types in Proquest Central
Limiting to "peer reviewed" OR "Research" in CINAHLPlus

What is google scholar? How should I use it?

Google Scholar is a time-saving, scholarly search interface accessible from within the Google interface. With Google Scholar, you can access peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book sections. For literature searching, specialized databases have more functionality and access more comprehensive results, but Google Scholar is a good tool to use for a search for a known item.

You can configure Google Scholar to:

Display a link to NYU options for the full-text of an article
Export your citations to RefWorks or EndNote

Here's how to display NYU links:

Open scholar.google.com
Go to the left screen, 3 bars, "Settings"
Click on menu item, "Library Links"
Type in: NYU
From the results, put a check mark next to "New York University Libraries-GetIt at NYU"
Click on Save to save preferences.

The next time you search scholar.google.com, the GetIt at NYU option will be available next to accessible article citations.

Here's how to change settings for Bibliography manager:

Open scholar.google.com
Go to the left screen, 3 bars, "Settings"
In the Search Results, go to Bibliography Manager
Select Show Links to import citation into: (your choice of bibliography manager, BibTex, Refworks, Endnote, etc.)
Click on Save to save preferences.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.

Customize your "Scholar Preferences" for automatic linking to NYU's full text. Enter "New York University Libraries - Get at NYU" in the Library Links box; save your preferences.