Resources for Finding Information

For your speeches, you need to have sources that will give you good information on a variety of topics. Here are some ideas.

Useful Reference Books

The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Reference R031 B862N1991 ~ A good source of background information and bibliographies. Look up your topic in the index to get started.

Some other encyclopedias you may find useful:

The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America, Reference R 323.1196 E56
Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice, Reference R 364.03 E56
Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family, Reference R 306.803 E56
Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Education, Reference R 372.2103 E56
The Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism, Reference R 306.4460973 E56
The Encyclopedia of American Immigration, Reference R 304.87303 E56
Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, Reference R 327.73 E56F
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, R 305.8 H339
Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia, Reference R 306.703 H918
International Encyclopedia of Communications, Reference R 302.2 I61
International Encyclopedia of Population, R 304.6 I61
Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, Reference R 305.403 R869
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Reference R 973.9 S143

How else can reference books help me? There are often bibliographies at the end of their articles; these bibliographies can lead you to other useful books and articles.

How can I find more reference books on my topic? Try browsing the Reference section. Browse the shelves around a particular book you like; call numbers tend to keep books on like topics together. Search I-Share Online using your search term combined with the word "encyclopedia" or "dictionary."

Book Sources for Statistics

• Quick Searches A good way to start looking for books.

• You can either look for particular items (such as a particular title), or you can do keywords searching.
• Use the main words describing your topic. For example, to find books about phonics, type the word phonics (with or without capitals).The word phonics can be anywhere in the description of the item, like the name of the publisher.
• To do a more focused search on, say, phonics and whole language learning, select Boolean, and type in phonics and "whole learning"
  
• Browse Subject Searches A more precise way of searching.
  • I-Share Online uses Library of Congress Subject Headings (or LC subject headings) to arrange and organize information.
  • Subject headings are very specific; you can guess what they might be, but you can't make them up. Some examples of subject headings:
    • Tattooing
    • Titanic (Steamship)
    • Sex on television
    • Chicago Cubs (Baseball team) -- History
    • Dreams
    • Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973
• Guided Keyword Searches Allow you more flexibility.
  • Click the appropriate tab, and fill in the blanks as desired.
  • You can change your searching options to look for either some or all of the words you've typed in, and to look in different areas of the item's catalog record.
  • For example, select all of these and type eating disorders treatment.

Finding Magazine, Journal and Newspaper Articles using the Library's Resources

• Academic Search Premier ~ A good place to start. Includes references to scholarly as well as popular periodicals.
• Periodical Abstracts ~ Includes indexing, abstracting, and some full text for magazine and journal articles.
• WilsonSelectPlus ~ Includes indexing, abstracting, and full text for a variety of magazines and journals.

Newpaper Article Sources

• Wall Street Journal ~ full text from 1985 to present.
• New York Times ~ full text back to 1999, with indexing available back to 1990. For older articles, try ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times, which has full text articles back to 1851. On campus access only.
• Chicago Tribune ~ full text from 1985 to present.
• Lexis-Nexis Academic ~ accesses a variety of news and business sources, many of which are full text.
• Newspaper Source ~ full text from more than 100 U.S. and international newspapers. Includes sources such as USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The (London) Times, and transcripts from NPR's Morning Edition.

Resources for Persuasive Speeches

For your persuasive speeches, you may find it useful to look at resources that "take sides" on an issue.

Use the I-Share Catalog to search the following series of books that deal with both sides of contemporary issues in modern society: Opposing Viewpoints  Taking Sides  Current Controversies  To find books in these series that deal with your topic, perform a "Guided Keyword" search. Enter your topic in the first search box, and enter one of the series titles in the second box. Example: Abortion AND Taking Sides Also try... CQ Researcher  Look for the "Pro/Con" links in the article headers.