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EN1300 Composition II Library Guide Spring C 2023

Resources for choosing a topic, finding articles, annotated bibliographies, and writing your paper

Finding Scholarly Articles, News, and Credible Websites

magazinesYou are asked to find "Scholarly Articles," "Peer-Reviewed Articles," or "Academic Articles." These types of articles are:

  • Written and reviewed by scholars and provide new research, analysis, or information about a specific topic.
    • "Review" means the article is approved by other experts before publication
  • Usually focused on a narrow subject or a single case study

  • Intended for an academic audience

OneSearch

OneSearch is an all-encompassing search engine for locating articles in journals and ebooks.

  • Check the box "Full Text" to limit your results to full text articles. Check the box "Peer reviewed" to limit your results to Peer reviewed or Scholarly articles. You also may use the limiter tabs at the top of your results page.

  • If you try to download an article and see "Page unavailable," use a different browser. Microsoft Edge or Firefox are recommended.

Advanced Search

Smart Searching Part 2 with One Search -Keyword v. Subject This interactive tutorial will show you how to limit results by date and refine your search by subject.

Other Databases 

These databases contain journal articles, legal, business, and news resources, and other materials not found through OneSearch.

Avoid using Editorials or Letters to the Editor from print or online newspapers. These articles are "opinion pieces" and the authors may lack subject expertise.

Image by Luis Estrada from Pixabay

Use these reliable fact-checking and bias-checking websites for news articles and websites:

  • FactCheck.org (politics)

  • Snopes (urban legends, hoaxes, folklore, memes, and rumors)   

  • Climate Feedback (climate change)

  • MediaBias/Fact Check (analyzes news and other website bias and contains a list of questionable sources).

  • AllSides (reviews how the same news story is covered across the political spectrum - from the left, the center, and the right).                                                                                      

Use the questions on the Questions to Ask When Determining Credibility of Sources handout to help you determine the credibility of websites. Check the information by comparing several websites on the same topic. Take a few facts from one article and confirm or disprove them with another credible source (Stebbins, 2015, pp. 22-23). Use the fact-checking websites on the News tab.

Useful tip: Government and military websites, whose URLs end in .gov, .mil, .state.us, or .state.gov, are credible sources of information. For more tips about using information from websites, watch the short NAU video below.

Stebbins, L.F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Search Tips

SearchUnlike Google, library databases can't understand an entire sentence. So you'll need to break your topic down into the most important ideas - the KEYWORDS.

Example Topic: What was the effect of social media on candidate preference in the 2016 US presidential election?

The specifics of your topic will matter when selecting sources, but for searching you only need the most essential components.

Keywords: social media, candidate preference, 2016 US presidential election

Tutorial - Finding Keywords

If you find you need to practice choosing keywords, try the Finding Keywords tutorial.

Most words have synonyms that mean the same, or very similar, things. For each keyword in your topic, try to come up with at least one synonym. Not all keywords will have synonyms, but many do!
Example: 
 
Keyword: social media     Synonym: Facebook
Keep an Eye Out
Sometimes scholars use terms that you might not be familiar with, or which might mean something very specific within the discipline. While searching, look for unfamiliar terms or words that show up a lot. Try searching for those and see if you find more relevant sources.
Limit searchOne Search and the individual library databases have built-in search tools. Try some of these:
  • Subject: Think of subjects as official hashtags. Use them to find sources about that subject.
  • Date Range: Limit your search to sources published between specific years.
  • Peer Reviewed: Limit your search to scholarly journal articles.
  • Full Text: Make sure all the results are available to read in full.
In OneSearch, use the All Filters tab at the top of your results page.  For  "Advanced Search," options appear to the right and below the search boxes.
For the Ebsco databases, filters will be to the left of your search results. --------------------------------------->
For the Nexis Uni database, filters also will be to the left of your search results.

 
 
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