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Using Library Databases

How to find scholarly articles on SCC Library databases

Using Library Databases

Library Research Databases

Scholarly Encyclopedias - concise, general background information; articles often written by experts who are university professors

Periodicals - magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals

Controversial Topics

  • CQ Researcher - reports providing in-depth, unbiased coverage of political and social issues
  • Gale Opposing Viewpoints - reference, news, magazine, and journal articles as well as statistics, videos, audio clips and recommended websites providing pro and con coverage of controversial political and social issues

Books

  • eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - Thousands of eBooks selected for college and university researchers. Use the Search options to narrow your search. Many eBooks have a "Most Relevant Pages From This eBook" list and a "Table of Contents."
     

General Research Tips

  • If required to use only recent documents (within the last 5 years, for example), narrow the date range of your search (this option is not available on all databases).
  • The SCC Library can request a copy of documents from other academic libraries; however, it may take 3 to 10 days for it to arrive at the SCC Library. By selecting the "full text" check box, search results will only include those that you can open, print, and/or email.
  • When searching, use quotation marks to keep phrases together:  "mass incarceration" "domestic violence" "human trafficking"
  • If you have too many results, try changing the search fields. Here's an example from Academic Search Complete that shows the search fields changed to Subject Terms so that retrieved articles must really be about that subject rather than just mentioning the words in a minor way.