University Library > Individual and Society

General Education 130
Individual and Society

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This guide has been put together for students in Professor Knight's GEN ED 130 - Individual & Society classes. The goal is to point to sources of information that will help in the completion of the homework assignment and the group research project.

How to Find News Stories

There are two ways to go about finding a newspaper article- browsing and searching.

Browsing

Stay on top of what's going on in the world as well as do your coursework at the same time! Browsing the websites of major world newspapers not only keeps you up to speed with current events, but it also helps you to accomplish part of the assignment. The links below lead to the front page of the newspaper:

New York Times | LA Times | Chicago Tribune | BBC World | The Times (London)


Searching

In addition to browsing major newspapers, you can also use the library databases to find newspaper articles. By using the library databases, you will increase the number of newspapers that you could search tenfold.

The two major newspaper databases to which the Library subscribes are LexisNexis Academic and Proquest Newspapers. You can access these databases by starting at the Library's home page and clicking on Alphabetical List of Databases. From here, scroll to the letter “L” and click on LexisNexis or scroll to the letter “P” and click on Proquest Newspapers.

Haven't used a database before? Check out the How to Use Proquest and How to Use LexisNexis guides for search techniques and tips to help you with your searching.

TIPS for LexisNexis:

  • Use the Guided News Search — it will give you more options in refining your search.
  • When searching, utilize search terms that will bring out the necessary elements of the article. Because you need to find an article that references a study done by researchers, you could include study OR research! in one of the boxes. This will require that those words be present in the article.
  • For the date range, enter 10/16/2006 in the first box and leave the second blank. This will only search for articles from that date forward.

TIPS for Proquest Newspapers:

  • Browse the Publications to see which newspapers you will be searching — click on the tab at the top of the page to do this.
  • In addition, you can use the Topics in order to focus your search. By clicking on the tab, it will take you to a thesaurus of subject terms and even suggest terms as well.
  • Scan the subjects of the articles that you find are helpful and then search for those subjects. You may have better luck that way.
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How to Find Journal Articles

Now that you've found the newspaper article mentioning the study, you have to find the original research report, also known as the primary source. A primary source is usually a research study published in a professional journal that specializes in a particular subject area. The best research reports come from peer-reviewed journals that evaluate the scientific quality of each research report by a small group of experts familiar with the specific research.

Identify as many of the following items as you read through your newspaper article:

  • the name(s) of the researchers involved with the study
  • the name of the journal that published the study
  • the date of the study
  • the affiliation of the researcher(s) – the university where the researcher works
  • the key concepts of the research study

After you have identified as much information about the study as possible you can go to the following databases to locate the journal.

Library Databases
The Library provides access to several major social science databases that you could utilize in order to find scholarly material on the topics. From the Library's home page, click on Find Articles, Statistics... and then on Social Sciences. Below are a few to try:
  • PsycINFO/PsycARTICLES (EBSCO)
    PsycINFO is one of the top psychology databases available, with an excellent thesaurus to help with searching to provide a wealth of information. The PsycARTICLES database is completely full text, whereas PsycINFO has some full text.
  • Social Science Citation Index (Web of Science)
    SSCI is structured differently than the other databases, as it provides abstracts of articles and the list of references accompanying the article. It also lists how many times an article has been cited by other articles, an indicator on the popularity of an article.
  • Social Sciences Full Text (WilsonWeb)
    Another good discipline-specific database mostly full-text articles available.
  • Sociological Abstracts (CSA)
    Sociological Abstracts can be a little daunting with its nine search boxes, but once you're familiar with the interface, it contains lots of useful information.

Title of the Journal
If you have the title of the journal in which the study appeared, then your quest is relatively painless. From the Library's home page, click on Journal Holdings List under the Find Articles, Statistics... heading. Just type in the name of the journal and search. This will tell you whether the Library has electronic access to the journal or in print.

What if the full text of the article isn't available?

  • Journal Holdings List
    Check the Journal Holdings List to see if we have the full text through a different database or in print.
  • Find It!
    You may have noticed the Find It! button with the articles that don't have the full text available. Click that button to have it automatically search for the full text in other databases.
  • Citation Linker
    Enter the citation information to have it find the full text.
  • Interlibrary Loan
    As a last resort, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan ($1 per article).

How to Research a Topic

Your topic should be chosen so that it is neither too broad nor too narrow in scope. A broad topic will require too much information to be effectively addressed and a narrow topic may have insufficient information. Identify key concepts and questions that apply to your topic as way to generate keywords that may be used when searching the Library’s databases.

Citing Sources

Once you do all of that hard work, you have to cite your sources. The Library has a guide on how to cite using APA Style with examples on compiling the list of references.

Examples:

Periodicals - One author; journal paginated through year (4.16 #1)
Mellers, B. A. (2000). Choice and the relative pleasure of consequences. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 910-924.

Newspaper Article (4.16 #9)
New drug appears to sharply cut risk of death from heart failure. (1993, July 15). The Washington Post, p. A12.

Internet article based on print source (4.16 #71)
Fandangos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

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