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UCS 10101 Course Guide

The following databases are great places to start your research for this class. Note that Academic Search Complete and JSTOR are databases that search for information in all kinds of subjects. Oxford Research Encyclopedias can provide an overview of some topics. The others in the list are specifically designed to focus on articles and information related to your course topics. 

Databases:

Note: You may still want to use other databases. Either try the OneSource search to search multiple databases at once, or branch out into databases with other topics/subjects.

Government Resources:

The United States government creates documents and resources to keep the public informed about its activities and provide information and resources. The Hiram College Library is a government document depository library, meaning that we store and provide access to government resources, both in print and online. 

For this course, Academic Search Complete will be a good place to begin. 

Use Academic Search complete to find your scholarly article. Remember to think about your keywords, and then limit to Scholarly (peer reviewed) Journals, and change the slider bar to limit the dates to 2015-2020. 

You might also find your empirical studies or personal accounts here as well. 

Starting with a keyword search can help you locate subjects to refine your search if you have too many results. 

Keyword Examples:

  • College Students
  • Higher education
  • accessibility
  • NOT pathology (using "NOT" before your keyword will tell the system that you do not want it to find articles with that keyword)
  • review

Use the Advanced Search to select "subject terms" from the dropdown menu to do a subject search instead of a keyword search.

Subject Terms Examples:

  • Disabilities
  • Disorders
  • SPECIFIC DISABILITY - example: "Vision Disorders"
  • Higher Education

PsycINFO provides some search limiters that may be helpful when looking for empirical studies, meta analyses, or a literature review. 

You can find these in two ways. 

  1. Do a standard keyword search. On the left hand side, use the "Refine Results" menu to select Methodology. Place a checkmark next to: empirical study, literature review, and/or meta analysis.
  2. Do an advanced search. Use the dropdown boxes to narrow your searches. Under Methodology, select empirical study, literature review, and meta analysis. Make sure to de-select "all."

Other useful databases or resources:

Since you are researching about college campuses, education databases can also be helpful places to look for additional sources.

Professor Pope has given you an excellent list of basic texts, reference books, and source books related to this course. To locate them, start with author or title searches for relevant books on that list using the Hiram College Library catalog.

In addition, the following resources may also help you with your research:

Interdisciplinary Databases:

Interdisciplinary Databases allow you to search one database for multiple subjects. These can be a good starting point for any class.

Historical Databases:

These databases focus on world history and/or medieval history and may be helpful for any European or World history class.

Finding Your Novel:

Professor Pope has given you a list of authors who write novels set in medieval times. To find them, use the Hiram College Library catalog and search by the author's last name, followed by their first name. 

Remember:

  1. You can also do a keyword search using sometime of subject (person, place, country, or time period) and the word "fiction." (Example: "Eleanor of Aquitaine and fiction")
  2. Check the "Suggested Terms" tab to see the subjects that the book is about. You can use these to broaden your search if you wish.
  3. A book is a novel (not a nonfiction book) if one of its subjects includes the word "Fiction."
  4. You may also use OhioLINK and SearchOhio. Just leave time for the book(s) to arrive and that your library "barcode" is your student ID number.

Other Resources:

I have an APA citation - now what?

If you already have a citation from a bibliography or other source, you have everything you need to find the book, book chapter, or article if the library owns it!

  1. Identify whether you have a book or a journal article citation:
    • For APA citations, a book citation includes the name of the publisher: Stoneman, R. (2008). Alexander the Great: A life in legend. Yale University Press. In this example, the publisher is Yale University Press (shown in red).
    • A chapter or article within a book may look similar to an article citation, but it will include a publisher and will say that the article is "in" a book: Armstrong, D. (2019). Malory and character. In M. G. Leitch & C. J. Rushton (Eds.), A new companion to Malory (pp. 144-163). D. S. Brewer. Here "In" and the publisher, D. S. Brewer, are highlighted in red. 
    • An article citation, there will be no publisher listed, and there will be a volume and issue number for the journal: Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15(3), 5–13.
  2. Once you identify what type of citation you have, then identify the information you need to find it. 
    • For a book citation, identify the title of the book. 
      Example citation 1: Stoneman, R. (2008). Alexander the Great: A life in legend. Yale University Press.
      In the example above, Alexander the Great: A life in legend is the title of the book.
      Example citation 2: Armstrong, D. (2019). Malory and character. In M. G. Leitch & C. J. Rushton (Eds.), A new companion to Malory (pp. 144-163). D. S. Brewer.
      In the example above, A new companion to Malory is the title of the book. Malory and character is the title of the chapter or article within the book.
    • For a journal citation, identify the title of the journal or the title of the article.
      Example citation: Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15(3), 5–13.
      In the example above, The New Criterion is the title of the journal. The eclipse of listening is the article title.
  3. Find your material:
    • Book: Use the Hiram College Library catalog to see whether we own the book. If we do not, you can check the OhioLINK catalog to see if they own it. If you are looking for a portion of the book as in Example 2, then check the page numbers in the citation. Use them to locate the chapter or article within the book (in this case, pages 144-163).
    • Journal Article by Journal Title: 
      Use the Hiram College "Finding Journals" search to find journals by title. Then use the year, volume, and page number to narrow down your search.
      Remember to save the link to the article by using a "Permalink."
    • Journal Article by Article Title:
      Use OneSource to search for articles by article title. 
      Verify that the information is correct, and view the article if it is available, or request it via Interlibrary Loan if it is not. 
      Remember to save the link to the article by using a "Permalink."

Need a little more practice identifying the parts of a citation? The Virginia Tech University Libraries Citation Tutorial can help!

Watch this video to review the ways to locate a journal article when you have a citation!

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