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English 155: Professor Mayle
Finding Background Information
Learning more about your topic before you begin can help you formulate your arguments and can help you pick additional search terms.
- CQ Researcher - covers current controversial topics and includes pro/con section and a bibliography.
- Gale Virtual Reference Library - contains encyclopedia articles on a wide range of topics that can give you an overview of an issue.
Finding Articles
You can use these databases or any others listed on the database pages; this list is only a suggestion of places to start your research. You can also select a database by subject using the Find Articles & Research Data page.
- Multi-subject databases like General OneFile or Academic Search Elite
- Newspaper databases like Proquest Newspapers or LexisNexis Academic.
- Databases containing only scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles like JSTOR or Project MUSE.
- Guide to finding information on controversial and current issues: http://library.csun.edu/mfinley/issues/index.html
If the full-text is not available for the article you want to see, click the 
button or the "Find Text" link to see if the full-text is available in another database.
Narrow or Broaden Your Search (Boolean Searching)
Use AND between terms to narrow your search
example: television and violence and children
Use OR and/or truncate (*, ?) words to broaden your search
example: children or youth or adolescents
example: child* (will find child, children, etc.)
example: wom?n (will find woman or women)
Note: check online help for the correct truncation symbol in the database you are using.
Helpful Links
- Developing a search strategy: http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/search.html
- How to find a book in the library: http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/i-opac.html
- How to locate articles online or in the library: http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/locatearticles.html
- Types of periodicals - scholarly popular, etc.: http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/pertype.html
Contact information
If you have questions as you do your research, you can contact me directly at danielle.skaggs@csun.edu or 818-677-6808. For help 24/7, go to Ask-A- Librarian (http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/askus.html).
18111 Nordhoff St. Northridge CA 91330 (818) 677-2285 |
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