ENG101.T27: College Writing (Zuber)
Why use scholarly articles?
Why should you do research in academic journals?
- Academic journal articles are often authored by scholars active in a particular field
- Academic journal articles provide a close look at a particular topic
- Academic journal articles often provide data to support their findings
- Academic journal articles can lead readers to other sources through their bibliographies
If you find one good article that supports your research, you can use the bibliography at the end of the paper to locate further research.
Topic Portals
Topic portals organize selected sources to introduce you to a variety of current events, influential people and controversial issues. The content in these "gateway pages" is by no means exhaustive so use it more as a jumping off point.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
A database of in-depth, authoritative reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time.
- Global Issues In Context (Gale) This link opens in a new windowOffers international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events. Featured are hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together a variety of specially selected, highly relevant sources for analysis of social, political, military, economic, environmental, health, and cultural issues.
- Opposing Viewpoints In Context This link opens in a new window
Full text database providing essays from books, magazine and news articles, statistics, primary documents, and Web sites present diverse views on many issues. Also a great source of ideas for research papers.
- Science In Context This link opens in a new windowScience in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of today’s most significant science topics. The new solution merges Gale’s authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, experiments, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.
Subject Encyclopedias
Subject encyclopedias are especially useful for getting more specialized background information; for example, this entry, "Animals in Agriculture and Factory Farming," is located in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Online reference databases contain hundreds of titles:
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text online versions of hundreds of top quality reference books in all major subjects from art to medicine, psychology to history, and technology to literature. Includes bilingual and biographical dictionaries.
- Gale eBooks (Virtual Reference Library) This link opens in a new windowFull text database providing subject specific dictionaries, encyclopedias and general reference books as well as the online version of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Subjects include science, history, medicine, psychology and mental health, literature, drama, film, popular culture, business, law, and more.