Learn the steps in developing a research topic before you start writing your paper.
Learn how to analyze resources for currency, reliability, authority, and purpose to find out whether they are suitable for use in your research.
Learn how to distinguish between real and fake news, recognize media bias, and more.
Learn how to use the library catalog, search in databases, and cite your sources.
It can be helpful to ask yourself some questions about your topic in order to make it easier to research. Here are some examples:
You can also try re-phrasing your topic to explain it to a friend or someone who doesn't know as much as you do about it.
| General | Narrow | Focused |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising or culture | racism or sexism in advertising | How advertising in the 1930s showed women's role in society to be cooks, housewives, supporters of husbands, or nurturers of children. |
| the American workplace | The Labor Movement | How Henry Ford and others threatened and beat up workers attempting to organize. |
| The American Workplace | The Labor Movement | The UAW strike that prevented building planes in the months leading up to WWII or their strike in the 1950s hindered missile defense. |
Many of the databases we subscribe to are products of Ebscohost. This benefits you because they have the same format and you can search many of them at once using the Choose Databases option just above the search bar. (Once the list displays, hover over the yellow blurb box to learn more about each database.)
Academic Search Complete is one of the most popular databases because it covers a comprehensive list of subjects with full-text articles.
For a basic search, type a few keywords and hit the "Search" button.
On the results screen you will see a column of limiter options. For best results, make sure the Full Text box is checked. If researching for a college course, choose Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. You may also want to pull the slider on the publication date range to find more recent articles as needed.
You can limit your search by source type. Academic journals are recommended, but Magazines and Newspapers may also be useful. To narrow down a topic by subject, select a subject from the limiter column.
Clicking on the title will take you to the detailed item record. Click on the "PDF Full Text" or the "HTML Full Text" links to view the article. Some articles with HTML full text will display the article at the bottom of the page.
To find articles on similar subjects, click a link in the Subject Terms area. Since many Ebsco databases use specific terminology, this area can give you keyword suggestions when you are stuck.
The Tools column is particularly useful when you need to print, email, save, or cite the article. Citations are automatically generated, so double-check the content and formatting before using it in a paper.
Comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications. The majority of full text titles are in native (searchable) PDF format.
The definitive database of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Provides selective indexing for 1,700 journals from 1955 to present and full-text coverage of more than 200 journals and nearly 100 books.
Provides full text for over 1,000 business publications. The rich collection of titles provides information dating back to 1985. More than 10,100 substantial company profiles from Datamonitor are also included. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost.
The Education Resource Information Center provides access to education literature and research from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Content includes journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, dissertations and theses, and books dating back to 1966. Access link may only be available in the record.
Offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 1,000,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 15,000 records.
The richest collection of consumer health information available to libraries worldwide, providing information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. Provides access to nearly 80 full text, consumer health magazines. NOTE: Do not substitute database information for a professional medical diagnosis.
Provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. Also features the AHFS Consumer Medication Information, which covers 1,300 generic drug patient education sheets with more than 4,700 brand names.
Offers full text from more than 1,620 reference books, encyclopedias and non-fiction books, 150 leading history periodicals, nearly 57,000 historical documents, more than 78,000 biographies of historical figures, more than 113,000 historical photos and maps, and more than 80 hours of historical video.
Designed specifically for public libraries and provides full text for more than 2,000 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1922. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Complete also contains full text for more than 1,000 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags. This database is updated daily via EBSCOhost.
Designed specifically for high school libraries and contains full text for nearly 500 popular, high school magazines, more than 360 full text reference books, 85,670 biographies, over 107,000 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of over 510,000 photos, maps & flags, color PDFs and expanded full text backfiles (back to 1975) for key magazines.
Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine and uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.
Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government and offers a thorough collection of periodicals, academic journals, and other content pertinent to the increasing needs of those sites. Provides cover-to-cover full text for nearly 300 journals and periodicals and indexing and abstracts for more than 400 titles.
Includes more than 860 full-text newspapers, providing more than 35 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 857,000 television and radio news transcripts.
Provides full text for more than 70 popular, magazines for elementary school research. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles), and full text information dates as far back as 1990.
Designed for professional educators, this database is the most comprehensive collection of full text education journals in the world. Provides a highly specialized collection of nearly 520 high quality education journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles and more than 200 educational reports.
Covers information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational & experimental methods. This is the world's largest full text psychology database offering full text coverage for nearly 400 journals.
Provides comprehensive full text coverage for regional business publications and incorporates coverage of more than 80 regional business publications covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
Provides extensive coverage of such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. With more more than 300 full text journals, it is an essential tool for researchers and students of theology and philosophical studies.
A collection of eBook encyclopedias on nearly every subject, available 24/7 through the Gale Virtual Reference Library platform.
Gale eBooks, previously known as Gale Virtual Reference Library, searches a wide range of encyclopedia articles from a variety of eBooks. It is especially useful if you are looking for an overview of your topic.
To start with, either type your topic in the search box or select a subject from the Collections column.
From the results page, you can click a title to read the article.
You can also limit the search by subject, document type, or encyclopedia source.
Note that some encyclopedias have the same titles, but different years or editions. For academic research, you will almost always want to select the more recent resource.
Once you have clicked on the article, you can use the Tools row at the top to cite, email, download, or print the article.
Downloading a PDF of the article often preserves the original formatting, including images and page numbers. Page numbers are particularly useful to keep track of if you are using the source in your paper and need to cite that page.
You can also use the Article Contents links on the Explore side column to jump to a specific page. The More Like This and Related Subjects box will point you to more articles on similar subjects.
Biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors and literary resources from every age and literary discipline.
Gale Literature pulls together the Literature Resource Center and Artemis databases for coverage of many of Gale's literary articles, biographies, and more.
You can begin searching by typing keywords into the search bar, or you can use the Topic Finder feature for a more visual approach in exploring a topic.
Once on the results screen, you can click on a title to view the article. Check the word count before you click - some links are only abstracts and do not include the full article.
If you have too many results to dig through, you can narrow your search using the search limiter column. Critical Essay is perhaps the most useful content type for English courses, followed by Articles and Essays. You can also limit by subject, work, and more. Keep in mind that not all items have been fully indexed with subjects, so using limiters can sometimes eliminate relevant articles as well.
Click on a title to view the article. From here, you can use the tool bar on the top to cite, email, download, or print the article. The citation tool is automated, so double check each citation before using it in an essay.
You can also use the Related Subjects menu on the side to search for similar articles.
A one-stop source for information on social issues, with access to viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints pulls together comprehensive coverage of a range of controversial topics, which allows you to explore the pros and cons side-by-side. You can also view a wide variety of resources, including viewpoint essays, statistics, news, videos, and articles from encyclopedias and magazines.
Type your search terms into the search box, or browse topics using the subject boxes below the featured articles. One advantage of browsing the issues listed in these boxes is that they are already organized into collections of resources.
Once you click on or search for your topic, you will be taken to a resource page on that topic. If the topic is not organized, it will have a list of all the results that include your search term, broken down by type.
If the topic is organized, it will have an overview, as well as a column that breaks the results down into resource types, such as Featured Viewpoints, Academic Journals, Statistics, News, Reference Articles, Magazines, and more.
Click on a title to be taken to the article or resource.
Once you are on the page, you can read the article. You can also use the toolbar at the top to cite, email, download, or print the article.
If you would like to find more information on similar topics, check out the Explore sidebar with "More Like This" articles and the list of "Related Subjects."
Includes core journals in economics, history, political science, and sociology, and humanities, as well as ecology, mathematics, and statistics. Also features a collection of free images and artwork from Artstor.
JSTOR is a multi-subject database, with a concentration of material in the arts and sciences.
To search JSTOR, type your keywords into the search box or click the Advanced Search option below it. You can also refine your search on the results page by narrowing your search by date, subject, or keyword. You can use the Advanced Search to search multiple fields at once.
You can sort your results by relevance, newest, or oldest.
When you find an article you are interested in, click the title to go to the item record, or click the "Download PDF" button to go directly to the article. Accept the terms and conditions to open the PDF.
You can also click "Cite this Item" to get the citation without opening the document.
If you click on the title, you will be taken to the item record.
Here, you can do many of the same things, including clicking on topic links to find more articles on related subjects.
If you are not able to download a PDF version of the article, you can read the article online using the arrows on either side of the article page to progress.
If you wish to jump to the part of the article that includes your search terms, click "View X Search Matches" above the document and jump to those pages.
Note: You can also try the Text Analyzer (under Tools), which allows you to upload a document or image, such as your essay. It analyzes the words in that document and retrieves relevant articles and keywords for you. It's a great tool when you are having trouble finding sources!
Films on Demand is a streaming video collection that houses educational, informational, and historical films on a variety of topics.
You can either search using keywords in the search box at the top, or you can browse by popularity, producer, or subject by clicking on the three lines next to the logo.
If you search by keyword, you will find several types of videos. Full videos are entire videos, while segments are clips within each video.
If a video is a segment, the title of the full video is listed under the segment title. Segments are available so you do not have to watch or cite an entire video, but can search for, and jump to, the most relevant part.
You can also filter your results by subject, producer, video type, language or copyright date using the drop down menus in the row above the titles.
Click on a title to view the video.
Once in the video, you can use the play panel to play or pause, turn up the sound, speed up the play time, or expand the video to full screen.
You can jump to other segments in the video using the segment table of contents.
All videos have closed captioning options. You can also view the transcript of the segment using the tabs in the column next to the video.
If you want to cite, share, or embed the video, click the links below the video.
Click a tag to view related videos.
Covers newspapers, magazines, wire services, federal and state court opinions, federal and state statutes, federal regulations, and SEC filings. Updated daily.
Nexis Uni, formerly known as LexisNexis Academic, is a database which contains thousands of newspapers as well as legal cases and business information.
Enter your search terms in the large search bar and click the magnifying glass to search. Since Nexis Uni covers many subjects, you will likely want to narrow your search. You can do this by selecting something from the drop down menu next to the search bar, which defaults to "All Nexis Uni" or by selecting a field in the "What are you interested in?" section. This drop down menu will let you limit your selection by multiple categories, jurisdictions, or topics.
You can also visit several Topic pages, which contain specific search tools and resources. The Business page, for example, lets you view company dossiers, view recent business news, or research information on companies. The Criminal Justice page lets you search statutes and legislation or view Supreme Court decisions and landmark cases.
The results page automatically defaults to News. If you wish to look at cases, statutes, company information, or a snapshot of everything, select the document type using the column on the left of the screen.
Results can be sorted by relevance, alphabetically, or chronologically.
If you check the box next to an item, you can print, email, or download it.
If you get a lot of results, you will likely need to narrow your results further. You can select specific locations, publication types, subjects, and more.
Click the title of any document to be taken to its full text.
Once in the document, you can again print, email, or save it using the menu row at the top. This information will appear at the bottom of the screen on small devices. Check the number of pages in your document before printing, as some can be quite long.
When it comes to statutes and court cases, there is an "Export Citation" button just below the title that allows you to cite the information in standard legal format.
Cases will often include the case history, term keywords, and a case summary that is especially useful as an abstract of the case.
In the "About this Document" column, there is a list of related content and court materials.
A one-stop source for information on social issues, with access to viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
A collection of eBook encyclopedias on nearly every subject, available 24/7 through the Gale Virtual Reference Library platform.