You may have a known citation to an article -- say you found it on Lexis or Westlaw, but it isn't hyperlinked. This may be because it is a legal article that is either too old or too specialized to be on Wexis. Or it may be an article that is from a discipline other than law. There are different approaches you can take to track these articles down.
For legal articles, start with HeinOnline. Go to the law library web page, scroll down a bit, and click on the HeinOnline link. Once there, the most reliable way to find an article is to click through to the Law Journal Library, then browse to your citation. Searching for the title or author is hit or miss on Hein in my experience.
If this doesn't work, or your article is a non-legal article, go to the Hodges library main page and use their OneSearch box. Put in the article title and the author's last name as your search terms. Hodges subscribes to a large selection of databases and journals, and with any luck you will find it. Look for links to "Download PDF" or for "Online Access."
For legal articles that are not on Lexis or Westlaw, you may also want to try the Law Library catalog to see if we have the print version of the article. Typically the best way to do this is to search by the journal title. For most journals, Lexis and Westlaw only started making them available from about the 1990s. While many older journal articles can be found on Hein, there are a few that are not on Hein but we do have in print.
In your research, you may run across an article that you can't seem to find either at the Law Library, Hodges, or one of the free online databases like SSRN. If you think you've found such an article, just email lawill@utk.edu and we will do our best to track down the article and get it to you ASAP.