Finding Citation Information When a "Tool" is Not Available
JSTOR, one of our most popular scholarly journal databases, is an example of a database that does not create formatted citations, but it does provide generic citation information. In cases like this, you will need to create your own citation with the provided information.
In JSTOR, if you think that you will want to organize, export, store or email multiple items, create a MyJSTOR account. This will allow you to check multiple items and manipulate them. (Most databases have a "folder" option to utilize in a similar way.)
However, since the citations that you can save, export or email will not immediately meet the format specifications of a particular citation style, if you are not a RefWorks user, remember that you can get the same information without bothering with MyJSTOR.
In JSTOR, if you click on an article/item, the key citation info will be in two places near the top of the page: journal information appears next to the picture of the journal and the author(s) and title of the article appear below, directly above the scanned image of the first page of the article.
(Note: the "Published by" line in JSTOR citation information is not part of a standard citation.)
A more cohesive version of generic citation information appears if you format a PDF of an article for reading or printing. Look at the top of the PDF title/first page:
This information will have to be turned into a style-specific citation.
Most Databases will provide citation information somewhere. Best practices when doing research are to make note of the information at the time you are viewing the article so that you can build your own citations either by using a citation tool or by using whatever style guide your professor requires and your own effort.
