Step 1b: Research the Academic Databases

Almost every college subscribes to a list of academic databases where more specialized, academic essays can be found. If you are an AUC student, go to the AUC Library Homepage and choose Electronic Resources to survey the 80+ academic databases that AUC subscribes to. Each of these databases specializes in a different kind of information. For a writing class exploring general research topics, the following four indexes are probably the most useful:

Academic Search Premier

Academic Search Premier is the most popular student database, and the most costly for schools. It is one of a handful of databases on EBSCO Host. After selecting Academic Search Premier, you will see a screen allowing you to specify more databases within EBSCO Host. Depending upon your topic, you may also want to check some of these boxes. On the search query screen on Academic Search Premier, you can control the kind of return hits your search retrieves.

On the Advanced Search tab, you can also search for keywords within a specific publication. This would be helpful if you knew a good journal or magazine, but were unsure of when an article was published on the topic in it.

CQ Researcher

CQ Researcher is a bit different than other journals. Every two weeks a new issue dedicated solely to one hot, current issue is published. One or two researchers produce all the content, and the articles are mainly informational rather than argumentative, giving readers an overview of the issue, of pro/con debates, a history, a bibliography of sources, and so on. CQ Researcher's bibliography is a great source for finding more sources -- you can plug some of the titles into other academic databases or even the Internet itself and often find the source. Because CQ Researcher is single-authored, you should careful that you do not overquote from it.

To cite a source from CQ Researcher, click on the nifty CiteNow! link on the top toolbar of the article and select MLA style.

A more academic journal, JSTOR has its articles stored as .pdf files. These .pds files can sometimes be large and therefore take a long time to download. However, all articles within the JSTOR database are quality academic articles, some perhaps beyond the scope of what you're looking for. To read a .pdf file you must have Adobe Acrobat reader, which you can download for free if your computer doesn't already have it. Before you search on JSTOR, you must first select which journals you want to search in.

The most common complaint students have about JSTOR is that the essays are too long and difficult to read. In fact, reading from JSTOR in contrast to the Internet will give you a good feel for the difference between academic and non-academic sources. When you use a source from JSTOR in your essay, your essay will be much more credible and scholarly.

If you're looking for news articles, LEXIS-NEXIS is the database to search. Keep in mind, though, that news articles aren't usually scholarly articles; they mostly give current information about topics. Some of the longer articles on LEXIS-NEXIS may be more scholarly. You just have to judge by the depth and research in the essay. The LEXIS-NEXIS database seems to contain almost every newspaper in the world. Hence specifying the search queries to get the returns you want can be a bit more complicated than usual.

In the Guided News Search tab (rather than the "Quick News Search" tab) follow the four steps for making a more specific selection. Doing so will yield much better results than simply typing in general keywords into the Quick News Search.

If you're having trouble finding information on one database, try another. Mix up your keywords or use different ones. If you get too many hits, try searching with more specific keywords. If you don't get enough hits, search with a broader set of keywords, or even just one keyword.

Finally, remember that you are not limited to these four databases. There are dozens more that the library subscribes to. Scan down the list and see if any others might be useful. These five are perhaps worth checking out:

Step 1b: Researching the Academic Databases

The Academic Databases