Erin Burns
eburns@psu.edu
724-983-2883
Erin Burns
eburns@psu.edu
724-983-2883
Identify and write down key concepts and synonyms and become familiar with your topic:
CQ Researcher – search for high-quality, researched reports on current social issues. If you're looking for a topic, use the left navigation bar to help you. Click on “Browse by Topic” or “Browse by Date” to see categories to help you brainstorm.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context – search for articles that discuss viewpoints on current social issues. If you're looking for a topic, check the list of popular topics here to get some ideas.
Gale Virtual Reference Library – The library’s version of Wikipedia! Good for a short, authoritative summary of a topic.
Once you have your key concepts and keywords, you can use The CAT to find books on your topic.
Using the "Begins With (Browse)" search, you can search the CAT using book titles or authors' names. Authors' names should be entered "last name, first name" and titles should be entered without the initial article (the, a, an...). If the book you want is about the author, make sure you search the name as a Subject, not Author.
Examples: Morton, J. -OR- english grammar for students of french
Don't have a title/author in mind? Instead of a "Keyword" Search, try using the "Topic: Title+Subject" search option with one or more keywords.
Try these first
Lion Search – one single search box that searches across all library resources for books, scholarly journals, e-books, newspapers, and more!
Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost): Provides full-text results from scholarly journals in a wide variety of topic areas.
Need newspaper articles?
The New York Times - search exclusively for New York Times articles using this link. Coverage goes back to 1980 and is free for Penn State users.
Access World News (Newsbank) has access to hundreds of newspapers including Pennsylvania newspapers (e.g. Centre Daily Times), plus national and international newspapers.
New York Times Historical provides the full-text of The New York Times, starting with 1851.
PressDisplay e-Image Database – Page image editions of daily newspapers from around the world
Daily Collegian Online with back issues through 1988. Check the Historical Digital Collegian Archive for issues from 1887-1987.
Government Websites
Census.gov (also has American FactFinder) http://www.census.gov
Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov
CARS Evaluating Websites
Credibility
Accuracy
Reseanableness
Support
http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/english/allwrite3/seyler/ssite/seyler/se03/cars.mhtml
