Humanitarian and Conflict Response: Journals

Peer-reviewed journal articles are evaluated and critiqued by researchers and experts in the field before being published. They are high quality academic sources of information. Nonetheless, different journals have different styles, and different types of articles can serve different purposes. For instance, they might feature longer or shorter articles, they more focus on a single discipline or be interdisciplinary, and in addition to original research they might carry book reviews, reflective essays, or roundtable discussions. Special issues of journals, concentrated on a particular theme, might also be produced – if you find an article relevant to your research, it can be useful to check the other articles from the same issue of the journal in case they are also relevant.

Journals were originally all hard copy. Most journals today produce both hard-copy and digital versions (the easiest way to access them is through the digital versions). Some very new journals are online-only.

The best resources for finding journal articles in your field of study are highlighted on this page.

Here are some of the journals that HCRI staff use when doing their research, and which make important contributions to their fields. Keep in mind that relevant materials may fall into multiple categories.

The University of Manchester Library is one of the largest subscribers to e-journals and databases in the UK but we don’t have access to everything.

If you find that we don’t hold a book, report, journal article or conference paper that you need, you can use our Inter-Library Loans service.

Databases are the best way of finding peer-reviewed articles on your topic as they index and provide access to articles from thousands of different journal titles.

The University of Manchester Library subscribes to over 400 databases but not all of these will be relevant to your subject. You can find the key databases for your subject by using the Databases tab in this guide or by accessing the Databases A-Z list.

Getting started with search tools

This resource explores Google, Google Scholar, subject databases and Library Search, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses to enable you to make an informed choice when selecting where to search for information.

View all workshops and online resources in this area on the
My Learning Essentials webpages.

Access to e-journals on campus is normally automatic, although in some cases a username and password are required. This may be either your University central username and password, or another password stipulated by the publisher. 

Library Search and the Library databases are the best way of finding peer-reviewed articles on your topic as they index and provide access to articles from thousands of different journal titles.

You can find the key databases for your subject by using the Databases tab in this guide or by accessing the Databases A-Z list.

• Library Search

  Library search provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more.

• Databases A to Z

  The Library provides access to over 500 databases. These can be found below using Library Search or our A-Z list.

You will often see a '' tab when looking through your search results in our electronic resources. This tab can be used to see if The University of Manchester Library has access to a particular article in either online or print format.

Articles not held by the library can be ordered via our Inter-Library Loan service.

If you are using Google Scholar on campus, the Findit@Manchester link will appear automatically next to your list of search results.

Find help and support with all aspects of locating and borrowing resources.

It is worthwhile carrying out a search on Google Scholar for articles relevant to your topic.

If you search Google Scholar while on campus, you'll find links to the full text articles on the Library databases via the Findit@MCR link.