Research Guides: COMM 1010: Prof. Laggan: Research Sources

Reference

Credo Reference
An easy to use resource for starting your research. Provides background information from dictionaries and encyclopedias on a wide array of topics ranging from Art to Technology.
World Book Advanced
More than 1.3 million pages of primary source documents, books, documents, and selections fully integrated with the encyclopedia content. Research and teaching tools include timelines, citation builder, and saved research.

Library Tools

Encore - Tri-C's Library Catalog
Find books, magazines, journals, newspapers, and audio visual materials.

My Library Account
Renew books, review holds, and check for book deliveries.

OhioLINK Library Catalog
A combined catalog of over 7.8 million books and other library materials from many of Ohio's universities, colleges, community colleges, and the State Library of Ohio.
OverDrive
Explore 1000's of downloadable e-books in a variety of subjects, including academic areas, classic literature, fiction, and more.
Electronic Journal Finder
Use the Electronic Journal Finder to determine whether a particular journal (and article) is available online.
Electronic Journal Center (EJC) (OhioLINK)
Contains full text articles from more than 10,000 academic journals from top scholarly publishers, academic societies, and university presses. The EJC covers a wide range of disciplines and contains just published scientific research as well as historical journal articles.

Article Databases

The resources listed below provide access to 1000's of scholary journals, newspapers, magazines, and trade publications. Use these sources to find credible quality information about your topic.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context
An online resource that includes articles from academic journals, newspapers, magazines; audio; videos; opinion essays; and primary sources on current controversial issues. A good source of topic ideas for papers and speeches.
Social Issues Researcher (SIRS)
Pros and cons on today’s complex social issues. Includes critical current issues and enduring social issues with full-text articles, multimedia, primary sources, government documents and reference material from over 1,800 national and international sources.
Newspaper Source
Newspaper Source provides full text for 185 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Times (London), Toronto Star, etc.

Evaluating Websites

Choose one commercial website (.com) and compare to a governmental, educational, or organizational website (.gov, .edu, .org) using the R.E.A.L. method of evaluation.
Or use the CRAP test evaluation tool for students to learn about criteria used to evaluate websites.

Get REAL Evaluating Websites
CRAP Test
Interactive website evaluation tool that enables students to score the quality of websites.

Google Search Engine

Google

To limit to authoritative websites, choose your preferred domain (.edu, .gov or .org) by adding site:.domain

Example

site:.org to your search.

Be sure not to include any spaces between site: and the domain.

To remove items with the minus sign. -wiki

For natural phrases such as school choice, be sure to use quotations.

Example: "school choice"

Specific Websites

ProCon.org
ProCon.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that has no government affiliations of any kind. Its purpose is to provide resources for critical thinking and to educate without bias. It does not express opinions on its research projects ("issue websites").

To search within a specific website in Google use the site command.

Example:

site:NPR.org