Finding Articles

What are Databases?

Databases are online indexes of journal articles and abstracts. Many include full-text journal articles. Some databases also contain book chapters, newspaper/magazine articles, citations for books, and more.

In plain English, a database is what you would use to find articles!

These databases are subject-specific to political science or other topics that may be relevant to your paper including education (public schools), health, and more. Newspapers government documents, and other data are included for potential use as primary sources.

Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes articles, books, and conference papers in comparative politics, international relations, law and legislation, political theory, and more. Full-text for 550 journals, 340 books, and 38,000 conference papers.
International Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Produced by the International Political Science Association, this database indexes dome 900 of the world's leading political science journals.
Education Research Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts more than 1,500 journals covering all levels of education. Also includes full-text of more than 100 books and a number of conference papers.
ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
The world’s largest source of education information with more than 1.4 million citations to articles, books, conference papers, policy papers, and other education-related resources. This EBSCO version adds links to the full-text of articles in other EBSCO databases, as well as a Find It link for other citations so you can determine if the Hiram College Library provides access to that article. Also provided are links to the full-text of ERIC documents on the Department of Education’s ERIC Web site.
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracting to more than 600 periodicals in nursing and allied health. Provides full-text to more than 575 publications with more than 425 being peer-reviewed journals.
Agricola (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Produced by the National Agricultural Library, the database includes citations for books, journal articles, reports, and other materials concerning agriculture and related disciplines. The EBSCO version adds a Find It link for other citations so you can determine if the Hiram College Library provides access to that article.

Hiram College Library's Newspaper Subscriptions
The Hiram College Library subscribes to a number of print and online newspapers. This page highlights what we have and how to find them.
Hiram College Library's Government Documents
The Hiram College Library is a Federal Depository Library Program member and houses a number of print and online government publications for research purposes.

These databases search across a variety of subjects and may be useful for many different courses.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database that indexes and abstracts some 9,300 periodicals, both popular and scholarly. Provides full-text to more than 5,300 journals.
Electronic Journal Center (EJC) This link opens in a new window
Searchable, full-text issues of journals from a number of major publishers. More than 7,000 journals are available.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Fully searchable full-text of nearly 1,000 scholarly journals. JSTOR provides back files to the first issue of a journal, but stops 3 to 5 years before the current publication year. Covers all disciplines.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new window
Covers current and controversial social issues from immigration to gun control to fracking. Viewpoint essays present different sides to an issue and the database adds periodical articles, statistics, video/audio, news articles, and primary sources.
Access World News Research Collection This link opens in a new window
Research diverse perspectives, topics and trends that align with curricular areas such as Political Science, English, Sociology, Humanities, Business, International Studies and more. Features reliable, credible information from a wide variety of international, national, and local news sources including the Akron Beacon Journal, Plain Dealer, Record-Courier, and USA Today. Available remotely 24/7 on any device.
Very Short Introductions This link opens in a new window
More than 600 e-books from Oxford University Press designed to offer concise and original introductions to a subject. Usually less than 200 pages, they are written by experts for a general audience.

Google Scholar
Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. While Google Scholar itself is free on the web, many of the citations it references are not. Accessing Google Scholar via the proxied link will enable Find It! and other Links from within Google Scholar citations.

These databases may be useful to you in other classes and give you a sampling of what the library has to offer for various subjects.

Art Full Text (1984 - ) This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource covering fine, decorative and commercial art, as well as photography, folk art, film, architecture.Content Includes: Full-text articles from more than 300 periodicals dating back to 1995 High-quality indexing and abstracting of over 600 periodicals dating as far back as 1984, including 280 peer-reviewed journals Indexing and abstracting of over 13,000 art dissertations Indexing of nearly 200,000 art reproductions A database-specific thesaurus
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts some 5,000 business-related publications. Provides full-text to more than 4,000 periodicals. Coverage of important scholarly journals goes back to the first issue (or back to 1886 in the most extreme case). Also includes financial data, industry reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses, market research reports, and more.
Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes some 400 titles related to the media and communication studies. Nearly 200 of the titles are also available in full-text. Some coverage back as far as 1915.
Education Full Text This link opens in a new window
This full-text source of education scholarship provides coverage for a wide range of topics, including adult education, continuing education, literacy standards, multicultural/ethnic education, secondary education, teaching methods.

Content Includes: Full text of articles from over 350 journals as far back as 1996 Indexing of over 770 periodicals dating back to 1983 More than 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests
Film and Television Literature Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts some 600 periodicals related to film, film writing, and television. Includes reviews.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Indexes more than 2,000 journals covering the history of the world (except the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life) from 1450 to the present. Also indexes relevant book reviews and dissertations.
ISI Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Part of the Web of Knowledge platform, this is the combined database of the Science Citation Index, the Social Science Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Searchable by keyword and author, but more importantly by cited reference.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Containing more than 15,000 credible news, legal and business sources, Nexis Uni includes access to print and online journals, television and radio broadcasts, newswires and blogs, as well as local, regional, national and international newspapers, legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, business information on U.S. and international companies and executives.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
The online version of Psychological Abstracts provides indexing to articles and books chapters published worldwide from 1887 to the present.
Science Reference Center This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive research database of full-text resources designed for high school and introduction college science courses. Covers biology, chemistry, earth and space science, environmental science, medicine, physics, and the history of science. Includes periodicals, reference books, images, and videos.
SocIndex with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexes, with abstracts, 590 "core journals" back to 1895 in all fields of sociology, including anthropology, criminology, demography, and urban studies.

Reading the bibliographies of a good article or book can be very helpful. But how do you find one of the sources listed? Look up the part written in italics.

If your citation looks something like the one below, then it's an article. (Hint: You know it's a journal article if you see volume/issue/page #s.)

Morrow, P. ‘‘Those Sick Challenger Jokes.’’ Journal of Popular Culture. 20.4 (1987): 175-84.

Finding it:

   -look up the title of the journal in the OneSource Journal Finder (Note: Look up the journal title, which is in italics, not the "article title," which is in "quotation marks.")
   -if the journal is available electronically, you can search within the journal itself or click on the "Full Text Access" link, and check if we have access to the year you need
   -if the journal is available in print, read the rest of the journal's record to see if we have the volume/issue you need

If your citation looks something like the one below, then it's a book. (Hint: You know it's a book if you see a city and a publisher/press)

Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation; Bellin, Joshua David; 2005, Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press.

Finding it:
-look up the title of the book in the H iram Library Catalog
-if we don't have it, click on the OhioLINK button to find it in another Ohio library

OneSource Search

Advanced Search

Precision in Searching

The words "AND," "OR," and "NOT" can help you make a search more precise. This is called Boolean searching, and it can seem really intimidating, but once you get the hang of them, Boolean searches can really help you!

For example, the search 'films AND psychology NOT children', will return a search with results that contain the keywords 'films' and 'pyschology' but not 'children' - important if you are only looking at adolescent psychology in films.

Learn more with this guide from the MIT libraries. It really helps explain Boolean searching, and you don’t have to be a computer scientist to understand!

Keyword vs Subject Searching

What's the difference between a keyword search and a subject search? Why should I care? This video explains it all!