1. Research for English 201 Ielleen Miller, Reference/Instruction Librarian imiller@ewu.edu Website: http://research.ewu.edu

2. Agenda Why do research? Accessing article databases from off-campus Finding overviews/background info & books Finding relevant articles to support analysis of topic – Article database recommendations – Database search strategy

3. Why Do Research?

4. Accessing Databases Off-Campus

5. Background, Overviews & Books CQ Researcher = 10-20 page overviews of public policy issues Online & print scholarly encyclopedias – Sage Reference Online – Gale Virtual Reference Library Why find books? – EWU-Only Catalog – EWU WorldCat Catalog

6. Choosing Article Databases Scholarly or non-scholarly? – Academic Search Complete & ProQuest – mixture of popular magazine articles, professional/trade articles, & scholarly journal articles from all disciplines; ProQuest also has lots of newspaper articles Limit to particular type of article Sense of what’s out there Sense of which disciplines care about your issue – More news articles? LexisNexis Academic or ProQuest Newspapers

7. More scholarly articles? Sage Journals Online & JSTOR – full text scholarly articles Web of Science (& Social Science) – unique database that can rank by # of times article is cited by others Social aspects? – SocINDEX with Full Text for sociology – PsycINFO for psychology Political aspects? Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Economic aspects? – Business Source Complete – EconLit Religious aspects? Don’t have one just for religion; try JSTOR & ProQuest Military aspects? Military & Government Collection Other useful ones for 201 topics: Health Source: Nursing/Academic; Education Research Complete; and Communication & Mass Media Complete

8. Search Strategy for Article Databases Freewrite keywords – what terms could someone use to describe topic? – What do you already know about your issue? Write down a few sentences, then note the nouns and other concrete terms – When reading a relevant source, note the vocabulary – background info very helpful here! Typing in terms: – Exact phrases “in quotes” – Look for any version of a word with * = child* – AND between terms to require all – (x OR y) for synonyms Note limiters (usually on left side of screen) Note subjects/descriptors of relevant records for ways to narrow results, or alternate wording Full text of the article? – Sometimes right there with description – Other times use yellow Check for Full Text button to see if it’s online elsewhere, in print, or use Interlibrary Loan