LTC Library: Written Communication Guide: Finding Articles

Scholarly Articles

A great place to start your research is in our multidisciplinary EBSCOhost databases.

New to EBSCO? Watch the video below for how to search for, filter, and save articles in EBSCO.

Check out these other resources as well:

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 3,100 journals, including full text for nearly 2,700 peer-reviewed titles.
Masterfile Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 2,000 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1922. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Complete also contains full text for more than 1,000 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags. This database is updated daily via EBSCOhost.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) This link opens in a new window
A community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window
Explore current issues and events with articles made to inspire thought-provoking debates

Google Scholar

Feeling stuck? Google Scholar is Google's nerdy cousin: It searches only scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Any results with a "PDF" link are freely accessible. If you can't open the full text, let a librarian know - we'll get it for you through interlibrary loan!

Advanced Google Tools

Google is usually our first stop when we're searching for information. When researching, we often need more specific search results. These Advanced Google Tools allow you to refine your search and limit to specific formats, domain names, and phrases.

Google Advanced
Allows you to make your search results more relevant. As well as to filter your results by language, region, date of last update, specific websites, and much more.
Refine Web Searches
Find other cool tricks and tips for things you can put in the search box at Google's Refine web searches page.

-- Use the "site or domain" box to limit your search to only certain domains, such as .gov, .org, or .edu

.gov = These are US government sites
.edu = Academic-affiliated sites owned by schools, universities, and research institutions
.org = Non-profit (but be careful - it is actually fairly easy to get a ".org" domain, so research the organization to ensure they are reliable.)
.com = A commercial site, anyone can own a .com domain.

Newspaper Articles

Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 860 full-text newspapers, providing more than 35 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 857,000 television and radio news transcripts.
U.S. Newsstream (Badgerlink) This link opens in a new window
Over 500+ U.S. news sources including Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, The Herald Times Reporter, and many Wisconsin newspapers.
Regional Business News This link opens in a new window
Full text coverage for regional business publications. Coverage of more than 80 regional business publications covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the USA

What about Wikipedia?

When you search for something online, Wikipedia is often one of the first results.

Should you use it? The answer is YES....and no.

YES!	NO!
Use Wikipedia as a starting point for your research	Don't quote, paraphrase, or cite Wikipedia in your research paper
Use it to get topic ideas or narrow down your topic	Never copy and paste from any article - including Wikipedia
Use Wikipedia to investigate an organization or famous author	Don't copy tables and charts from Wikipedia - go to the original source material.
Use the citations at the bottom of the page to find more articles on your topic