ENG101 / 102: Professor Spencer: Articles / Databases

If you are asked to search for articles for an assignment, you need to use our periodical databases.  The best one's to use are listed on the left side of this page.  These are collections of high quality publications, with much more reliable information than what you will find on the internet using a search engine like Google, which will give you a tremendous amount of irrelevant material not suitable for college research.

To research articles on the Civil Rights Movement and the leading figures surrounding it, we can try a few different databases (the most important ones are listed in the left side box on this page with links to them).  General databases such as Academic Search Complete and InfoTrac General OneFile will have articles that discuss the enduring legacy of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, etc., as well as articles discussing how we stand in terms of the changes and hopes that these leaders stood for.  Current events, court cases, books, movies, etc. that are related to the Civil Rights Movement will usually make connections to earlier times and leaders.

General OneFile opens up on a Subject Search to help you with this process (notice the search bar underneath "Subject Guide Search."

You can type a topic, such as "Civil Right Movement" or "Racism" or a person's name, such as James Baldwin.  Once you see your term display, click on the link called "Subdivisions" and you can choose from groups of articles based upon areas of interest (see the example below).

Try typing in the name of a person (like we did when looking for biographies in our book collection). You will see some suggested names pop up underneath the search bar to help you locate the correct one.

THIS WOULD BE MUCH BETTER AS A VIDEO!! 

Notice there are 355 articles on James Baldwin.  The Subdivisions link with the plus sign can be clicked on to get a a list of those 355 articles grouped into categories such as:

You can also use the Advanced Search link at the top of the page and combine different KEYWORDS to help you locate articles:

This will open up multiple search boxes:

Make sure that the "Full Text" check box is checked so that you only get complete articles that you can save or print and then look carefully at the articles that are listed, making sure that they discuss what you are interested in writing about, that they are not too short or brief (a page and a half at least comprises a real article).  Lastly, keep track of the dates that the articles were published (this might be important depending upon your subject).

Use the Advanced Search option in any of the databases listed on the left side of this page (it's a good idea to try multiple databases when looking for articles).  Ask a librarian for help with any of the modules outlined on these pages.

For articles about a specific novel, short story, play, etc., we can search English Literature Criticism databases specifically.  This will help us find articles written by qualified literary scholars, which will help you write about themes, characters, etc. You will blend your reading and analysis of the work with the views of experts and come up with your own unique argument about a specific aspect (thesis) regarding the literary work you are studying.

Find Literature Resource Center (there is a link on the left side of this page).

NNavigate to the Works Search to enter the title of a work and find criticism and overviews of that literary work, or use Person Search to bring up all of the articles about a certain author.

Make sure you use the search box underneath "Works Search" or "Person Search" and type in the name and view the articles (the database will give you a page of similar titles, so just make sure you find the correct title and author for a book, etc,, because some books or stories have similar titles or renditions: