Look up subject headings or keywords that describe or relate to your topic. Read through the whole list of bibliographic citations to get a general idea of what is being written. Look for trends in the treatment of topics, periodicals that cover your topic frequently, and the names of authors who show up often. Evaluate the citations. Although you cannot do a thorough job of evaluating articles without first finding them, there are some clues you can look for before you read the article.
Titles can be misleading, but they can also be informative.
If you can determine what type of periodical the article is found in and whether or not there is a bibliography, you can guess a good bit about the article itself. It is very tempting simply to choose articles that are available in full text. It certainly saves you the extra steps of finding out whether or not the library subscribes to the journal and if it is owned by the library where it might be found. However , the easiest choice is not necessarily the right decision. Copy down the complete bibliographic information of the sources.