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Foundations for Effective College Writing LAN 100s: Databases & Tutorials

Combing for Keywords

Construct your research question.

Choose 3 main concepts from your question.

Identify synonyms and alternative words or phrases for the 3 main concepts.

Search subject specific databases & string together the words and/or phrases you've identified.

Choosing a Database

Best "Starter" Databases

NEW DATABASE

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints

Opposing Viewpoints is an online resource of current events and social issues. While it covers a wide range of resources for most majors, it is especially helpful in providing information from different viewpoints on debatable issues.

Library Databases

What are Library Databases?

Types of Databases

Full Text: A full-text database is a compilation of documents in which the complete text of each referenced document is available for online viewing, printing, or downloading.

Indexing/Abstract:  You won't get full text links in these databases, but with the citation you can still enter an LBCShare inter-library loan request or copy and paste the citation into the Library Search Box to find the full text.

Platform: A platform is the interface used by the database provider. For example EBSCOhost and ProQuest are database providers that host many databases using the same platform or interface.

Identifying a Scholarly Article

How to identify a Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly Journal Article:

NC State University's: Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.

What is a peer-reviewed journal article?

All Credit goes to the Librarians of NCState University Libraries.

Types of Peer-Reviewed Articles

Scholarly articles: reviewed by experts in a process known as peer review before they are published.

Empirical article: based on an experiment or study. Empirical articles are original research articles.

Review article: written to bring together and summarize the results/conclusions from multiple original research articles/studies. 

Theoretical article: written to contribute to the theoretical foundations of a field of study.