Looking for some directions and help on finding articles in our library databases? Refresh your memory from IDS102 by visting the Links Tutorial information (no quizzes this time!) For further help, contact the reference desk.
You can remove a lot of the quesswork from the process of locating good articles by following one simple strategy: When you find just one relevant article, use the citations at the end of the article as a starting point to find more articles. In other words, see whose work the author has referenced, and see if it may be useful for your work.
Found some really great sources in one of the databases? You can select items from your search and put them to a list or folder, but did you know you can create a personal account that will save these items and make them available for weeks and months after you first found the items? Many databases offer the option to create and sign in to a free personalized account where you can save the articles that are useful to you. Once you are in a database, look for a sign in option in the database's menu bar.
Use these databases to find news reports and features, trade publications, scholarly research and analysis, and statistics.
News and multidisciplinary
Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost) Multidisciplinary database that can be a good starting ponit for finding resources in social sciences, business and economics, politics and policy, health and medicine, etc.
New York Times (current) (1980-present via ProQuest; includes articles from the New York Times Book Review and the Sunday Magazine)
The Wall Street Journal (1984-present via ProQuest: includes in-depth articles about companies, industries, and specific products).
Business, including company and industry information, workers, labor, etc.
Business Source Premier / Regional Business News
ABI/Inform Global Articles on business, management and industry; includes peer-reviewed scholarly research.
Social Sciences, including law, politics and policy, human rights, consumerism, environmental issues, etc.
PAIS International (Public Affairs Information Service). Indexes and provides citations and abstracts from policy oriented literature of the social sciences, including economics and political science.
CQ Researcher (via CQ Press Electronic Library)
With content updated daily, CQ Researcher is "the definitive reference resource for research in American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs". Reports include in-depth analysis of issues in the news, with extensive explanation, pro / con arguments, charts, references to additional authoritative sources, and more. Some recent relevant report titles include "buying green", "climate change", "sugar controversies", "genetically modified food", and "farm policy."
Social Sciences Full Text (Wilson Web). Provides indexing, abstracting, and selected full text to articles in over 350 leading English language periodicals covering anthropology, criminology, psychology, political science, women's studies, and sociology. Enter your search terms, and then in the Subject Area dialog box, select Social Sciences. Searches can be limited to peer reviewed, i.e., scholarly sources.
Sociological Abstracts. This is the principle index to the literature in sociology and related disciplines. It is an international database that provides citations to and abstracts from journals, books, dissertations, and conference papers.
NPR's and BBC's news programs often feature reports that focus on issues relevant to this class. You can search and listen to these programs online.
Look for the thesaurus option to enhance your search. The thesaurus function (sometimes called a controlled vocabulary or subject terms listing) shows related and synonymous words for your search terms. In a database, the thesaurus is also an alphabetical listing of all of the subject terms used to categorize the information in the database. The thesaurus can help you find other ways to talk about your subject and to learn what category labels the database uses for your topic. For example, you might search the thesaurus for "garment industry" and find out that the database uses the phrase "clothing industry" instead. You can use the thesaurus to add "clothing industry" to your search and get all the relevant items in the database. The thesaurus is often found in the menu bar or in the advanced search of a database.