Honors English 106 ~ Fall 2006

Dr. Mary Kay Mulvaney

Locating Articles in Library Databases

What article databases should I use to find articles on my topic?

• Academic Search Premiere ~ 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.
• Wall Street Journal ~ full text from 1985 to present.
• New York Times ~ full text back to 1999. For older articles, try ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times, full text articles back to 1851.
• 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.

• Check out some of our other databases for articles, if you aren't finding what you're looking for
• Find out about WebFeat -- like Dogpile, but for databases!

This is only a description of an article -- where's the rest of it?

• Click the button in the database.
• Search for the title of the journal or magazine in I-Share.
• For example, search for the title Teaching Tolerance.
• Click the link Check Availablility to get a listing of the volumes available.
• If you don't find the journal you need, take a look at the Alphabetical List of Journals Online. You can also call or email the reference department to inquire about a specific title or ask a question.

How can I get an article from another library?

• If you have already clicked on the button, click on the "Go" button next to the words "Interlibrary loan."
• Or, order your article using this online form.
• This process takes 7 to 10 days, so leave yourself plenty of time.

How do I know whether an article is useful to me?

• Learn how to critically analyze information sources.

Is this a scholarly article or a popular article?

• How to distinguish between the two.

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Locating Books in the A.C. Buehler Library

How do I find books on my topic?

• Use I-Share to find books held in the Elmhurst College library as well as books owned by 64 other Illinois academic and research libraries.
• 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 uses Library of Congress (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:
    • Work
    • Labor
    • Occupations
• 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.

How do I get a book that is not available in the library?

• Order the book from another library through Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

Some Helpful Book Series

• Current Controversies
• Contemporary World Issues
• Opposing Viewpoints
• Taking Sides
  • These books discuss the pros and cons of a topic.
  • To find books in these series, simply do a search for the title of the series in I-Share.
  • See above for more on I-Share.

Helpful Reference Sources

Electronic Sources

• The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Reference R031 B862N 1991 ~ A good source of background information and bibliographies. Look up your topic in the index to get started.
• Xreferplus - An online collection of 150 reference books covering many disciplines. Click here for a list of titles.
• Gale Virtual Reference Library - an online collection of reference books, including Countries and Their Cultures, Dictionary of American History, Encyclopedia of Sociology, Gale Encyclopedia of Everyday Law, among other titles.
• CQ Researcher ~ An excellent source for current hot topics. Each individual issue contains historical background, a timeline, current status, and potential future developments. The bibliographies are especially helpful in finding useful sources.
• Lexis-Nexis Statistical ~ Search the Statistical Abstract of the United States and other resources for statistics; also available online

Print Sources

• Encyclopedia of Business. Reference R650.103 E5
• The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America, Reference R323.1196 E56
• Encyclopedia of Ethics. Reference R170.3 E56 2001
• Encyclopedia of Sociology, Reference R301.03 E56 2000
• Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, Reference R305.403 R869

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.
• Reference books can also give a general overview of an issue, discuss the sub-topics of a larger issues and define terms.

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 similar topics together.
• Search Illinet Online using your search term combined with the word "encyclopedia" or "dictionary."

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 Internet Resources

Choosing a Search Engine

Not all search engines are created equal. Each is designed differently, functions differently, searches different parts of the Internet and gives different search results. How do you chose which one to use?

First of all, maybe you might like to learn how search engines work:

Search Engines What they Are, How They Work, and Practical Suggestions for Getting the Most Out of Them

Then maybe you might like to learn about the differences among search engines:

Search Engine Watch - Describes some of the top search engines.

Next, you will choose one or more search engines or meta search engines to use for your search:

Internet Tools and Sites - brought to you by the librarians at Elmhurst College.

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Search Engine Strategies
Not all search engines function the same. Reading the "help" or "tips" screens will help you understand how a search engine functions and how to create the most effective searches. Does your search engine allow the use of :

* Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT (world war one OR ww1 AND memoirs)
* Quotation marks " " to keep words in a phrase in order ("world war two")
* Special symbols like +, *, ! or - for truncation, proximity, adjacent words or plurals

So now that you understand how to put words together in the search engine, what words should you use?

*Try using language of the discipline or subject you are researching.
*Use terms that are narrow and precise - this helps eliminate "garbage results".
*Try to avoid terms with multiple meanings - the search engine doesn't know which meaning you want.
*Synonyms are your best friends. If one term doesn't work, try another word with a similar meaning.
*Spelling counts.

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Internet Subject Directories

An Internet Subject Directory is another tool that you can use to locate resources on the Internet. It differs from a search engine in many ways.

Here are a few Internet subject directories that you can try out:

About.com
Digital Librarian
InfoMine
Librarians' Index to the Internet
WWW Virtual Librarian

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Web Site Evaluation

Now that you know which search engine to use and how to construct an effective search, how do you know if the sites that you have found are any good? Are they reliable? Scholarly?

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites - from Cornell University Library
Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources - UCLA College Library

Don't forget to properly cite your Internet resources. It is an important part of the research process.

Writing & Citing - from the friendly librarians at Elmhurst College

Citing Sources - from the smart folks at Duke University Libraries

Resources for Documenting Electronic Resources - from Purdue's Online Writing Lab

Web Sites

RYT Hospital and Wayne Medical Center

Alibi Network

Martin Luther King.Org

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division

McWhortle Enterprises

Writing, Citing and Evaluating Resources

I've found all this stuff -- now what?

• How to Evaluate the Information Sources You Find

Who's going to help me write this paper?

• Writing Center at Elmhurst College

How do I do the citations at the end of my paper?

• Writing and Citing Assistance: MLA at Elmhurst College

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Created 20 October, 2003 by Ayanna Gaines, Assistant Reference Librarian
Last revised November 7, 2006 by Jennifer Paliatka, Assistant Reference Librarian
A.C. Buehler Library, Elmhurst College