Locating Books:

Use ToroFind Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC).

Use either your own keywords or Library of Congress Subject Headings
to look for books on your topic.
Libraries use Library of Congress Subject Headings to describe the contents  
of books and other materials listed in the library catalog.

For instance:

* Latin America -- Emigration and immigration
* Prisoners -- Education -- United States
* Public welfare -- United States
* Referendum -- United States
* United States -- Politics and government -- 2001--
* Right and left (Political science) -- History

Leave out dashes and commas when you type a search into the catalog.

          Ask Library Reference staff if you're not sure what to look under for books on your topic!

• Ebrary is a database of electronic books on a variety of topics geared to academic libraries and college
  students.
  Books available in this collection are not yet listed in the ToroFind Catalog.

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Locating Journal and Newspaper Articles:

To find articles on a particular topic, use a special index called
    an electronic database.

Some terms you should know before you search in electronic databases:

PERIODICAL: a paper or electronic publication that is issued on a regular basis
(quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, etc.).

DATABASE: an organized collection of information, especially electronic information.

JOURNAL (also called SCHOLARLY JOURNAL): scholarly publication published for
an academic audience; narrow focus, deeply researched, all articles approved before publication by a group of experts working in the same field as the author (this approval process is called peer review)

MAGAZINE: publication with popular interest articles and broad subject coverage.

CITATION: the basic information you need to find or cite the full text of an article;
includes article title, author's name, name of publication, date, volume & issue no.
and page numbers.

ABSTRACT: a brief summary of the main content of an article

FULL TEXT: the complete article

Two things you need to use CSUDH article databases off campus:

1. You must already be registered as a CSUDH Library user. (This should happen
    automatically when you register for classes, but please let us know if you
    think you may not yet be registered as a Library user).

    HOW TO FIND & LOG IN TO CSUDH LIBRARY ELECTRONIC JOURNAL INDEXES:

• go to the Library Home Page at http://library.csudh.edu/.
  
• under Find Library Materials click Journal Articles & Electronic Resources.
  
• if you already know which index you want, click the "Alphabetical List." button
      (Academic Search Premier is a good database to search first).
  
• if you need suggestions about which database to search, click "Subject List."
  
• when you click on the title of an index to log in to, you'll see this screen:

      Recommended Electronic Databases for Essay Research:

• Academic Search Premier: interdisciplinary database with indexing, abstracts and high
  percentage of full text articles from several hundred journals in political science; also covers
  other social sciences.
  
  
• JSTOR contains the full text for scholarly journals, including over 40 in the field of political science
  and many more in related fields; full-text is usually provided from volume one up to about five
  years ago.
  
  
• ProQuest Newspapers: searches the full-text of over 500 national and international newspapers
  written in English, including Los Angeles Times and New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and
  London Times; also provides a separate link to the Los Angeles Times database for articles
  from 1985 to date.
  
  
• Los Angeles Times Historical: a searchable index of newspaper articles from 1881 to 1985;
  provides .pdf articles images of individual articles and the full page of the newspaper, access
  to every page of all available newspapers, including photograhs, advertisements, and obituaries
  not found in other databases.
  
  
• CQ Researcher Online: objective and balanced treatment of current issues and hot topics; each
  12,000 word report by an experienced journalist examines all sides of an issue and includes charts,
  graphs, sidebar articles as well as a chronology, extensive bibliography and a list of contacts.
  
  
  
• CQ Weekly: news on Congress, government, politics and public policy. Topics include defense,
  economics, foreign policy, health, education, welfare, and more. Look here for clear summaries
  of legislation. Use the Search Articles interface for a more accurate search.
  
  
  
• PAIS International: Public affairs, public and social policies, international relations; includes some
  government publications.
  
  
  
• SocIndex includes indexing, abstracts and some full-text articles in all areas of the
  social sciences, including over 150 political science journals.

   

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•  Once you are successfully logged in to a journal index, read the instructions   
    (Help screen) to figure out how the database works.

•  Now do a keyword search or a subject search in the database you logged into.

•  To develop an effective search: look at your topic or research question and pull out
    the keywords. Then think of possible synonyms for each of the keywords.    
   For example : Should inmates receive a free college education while in prison?

KEYWORDS	prisoners	education	free
SYNONYM	inmates	college	state expense

Your search then becomes: prisoners and education and free,
but you may want to try another search with inmates and college and state expense.

•  If the journal article database has a Thesaurus or Subject Guide, look there to find correct
    search terms for your topic.

•  Another strategy: when doing a keyword search, try to find one article that is exactly   what you need.
  Look at its subject terms and re-do search with those subject terms.

•  Did you find too many articles?

•  Use more specific search terms.

•  Limit by language, publication, date, full text, peer reviewed.

•  Use controlled vocabulary (look in the database subject guide or thesaurus).

•  Narrow your search with AND.

 

•  Did you find too few articles? None? Out-of-context?

•  Use different search terms, synonyms, alternate terms and phrases.

•  Check your spelling.

•  Use truncation (child* = child, child's, children and other words that begin     with child).

•  Broaden your search by joining synonyms with OR.

•  Search a different journal database.

•  Ask for help!!!

  
Internet Resources:

Evaluate any websites you plan to use in your paper for high quality and reliability of the information.

What to look for:

1. Credibility (Who said this? Will the author stand behind this information?)
2. Accuracy (Where did this come from? Does it seem correct?)
3. Reasonableness (What kind of page is this?)
4. Support (Who else says this?)

For a more detailed version, visit the CSUDH Library "Evaluating Information You Find on the Web"
page at http://library.csudh.edu/Evaluatinginfo.htm.
For a more complex set of website evaluation criteria, try: Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages.

To find web sites which may be of value for research papers, use Google Advanced Search and limit the domain to .edu or (for political science courses) try .gov.
Google Scholar helps you to search the scholarly literature, including peer reviewed articles, to figure out
"what's out there", but you usually will not be able to freely access the full text of the article.
For scholarly literature, the databases listed above will usually be a better option for beginning your research.

 

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