Best Resources for this Course
Finding Articles
Often your professor will ask you to use scholarly articles, academic articles, or peer-reviewed articles. These are generally all the same thing. They are written by scholars who are experts in their fields and are usually tied to a college or university. They are great for:
- Credible and trustworthy information
- Recent findings and research topics in the field
- Research studies, tables, and data
- Bibliographies and reference lists.
Find Articles & Information about your topic:
- Academic Search Premier (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Provides searching of over 8,500 journals, including peer-reviewed, across a wide range of topics. coverage: 1975 to present - Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text reference books in 20 subject areas. It includes over 180 titles and 65,000 images "powered by a network of cross-references that cut across topics, titles and publishers to provide answers - and new connections - in context." coverage: Varies
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Provides original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on current events, including summaries and bibliographies. Controversial topics are addressed in a balanced, unbiased manner in the Congressional Quarterly tradition.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A full-text collection of more than 400 journals in business and the liberal arts, with especially strong coverage of business, finance, economics, history, regional studies, education, and sociology. (Our subscription includes the Arts & Sciences I, Arts & Sciences IV, Business I, and Business II collections.) JSTOR is notable for the high quality of the journals it includes. The most recent three to five years of each journal are usually excluded from JSTOR, however.
- Statista This link opens in a new window
One of the world's largest statistics portals with data from over 18,000 sources. Provides access to 1 million statistics. Also contains information on industries, countries, digital markets, and other topics, as well as infographics.
Finding Books and Ebooks
Bowman Library has a large variety of books and ebooks that are chosen for their relevance to the courses offered. You can access ebooks directly from the library website whether your off or on campus. Books and ebooks are good for finding overviews and history of your topic. You don't need to read the whole book to get the information you need for your project; often one chapter of a scholarly book will cover the information you need.
You can also search by subject in the catalog. If you click on the "advanced search" button below the search box on the front page, you will go to a page with several search boxes. In the box titled "Search Index" choose the option for "Subject". Then you can type any subject you want in the Search Term box. You will want one or two word phrases, like these:
Conflict
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Management
Controversy OR Controversial
Mediate OR Mediation
Negotiate OR Negotiation
Statistics & Online Resources
- Financial Times (via ABI/INFORM) This link opens in a new window
The Financial Times is read daily by businesses, politicians, and academics around the world. The FT covers a variety of topics, including management, business, the legal industry, politics, climate change, and economics, all from a global perspective.
While we no longer have a direct subscription to ft.com, we have access to content published from 05/31/1996 to present (with a 30 Day delay) through ABI/Inform. - Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowProvides access to scholarly literature "across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations." Note that many articles contain only the citation and no full text; if full text is not available, you can order articles or books via Interlibrary Loan.
- New York Times (NYTimes.com) This link opens in a new windowActivate your subscription from one of the links below and make sure you use the off campus activation link if you are off campus and the on campus activation link if you are on campus. After creating your account, you can log on to the New York Times site directly using your Menlo e-mail and the password you have set up. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user.
- New York Times One-Time Activation from Off Campus This link opens in a new window
To activate your NYT academic pass, click on the link, search for "Menlo College", and follow the instructions to create your NYTimes.com account from off campus. After activating your subscription, log on to the New York Times site (https://www.nytimes.com) directly using your Menlo e-mail address and the password you have set up for your NYTimes account. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user. Watch this access walkthrough video from NYT for additional assistance with activating your academic pass and registering your NYT account.
- New York Times One-Time Activation from On Campus This link opens in a new windowAfter activating your subscription here, log on to the New York Times site (https://www.nytimes.com) directly using your Menlo e-mail and the password you have set up. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user.
- Pew Research CenterPew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. They conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. Pew does not take policy positions.
- ProCon.orgContains information and positions on both sides of current controversial topics in the news.
Get the most out of your Google search
Searching in Google can also help you uncover relevant articles for your research. The problem is, how to find results that will be helpful?
SITE Searching
One way to target results in Google is to employ the site search. This requires you use a specific phrase before adding search terms to tell Google you only want results from a specific website or domain. The search always begins with site + colon + URL or Domain all without any spaces; next, add a space and insert your search terms. See the examples below -
- site:nytimes.com conflict resolution
- This search phrase tells Google that you'd like results that discuss conflict resolution only from the New York Times website **This is one of the best ways to search for articles on a given topic in the New York Times**
- site:gov conflict resolution
- This search phrase tells Google you'd like to see articles, reports, etc., from government websites that include information about regulation or laws or reports about conflict resolution
- site:edu conflict resolution study
- This search phrase tells Google to retrieve articles published by or in educational institutions that discuss any studies or research about AI
You can try different combinations as well.
Other search tips in Google
- Limit the date of your results by inserting the phrase after + colon + year or date without any spaces
- after:2016 Hate speech regulations college campuses
- This phrase tells Google that you'd like all your results to have been published after 2016 (note: the after phrase can come before or after your search terms)
- You can also limit your results to a given date range by clicking on Tools under the search bar, and then Any Time under that.
- after:2016 Hate speech regulations college campuses
- Search for an exact phrase by putting your terms in quotes when entering them in the search bar, e.g., "hate speech" -- using the quotes will ensure you retrieve results with that exact phrase
Before you begin exploring the databases you will use in your search, watch this video to help you think about the ways you might brainstorm possible keywords and search terms that will help you conduct your search!
Sorry Wikipedia
