A Guide to Finding Library Resources - CN 101

| Help | Search Tips | Internet Searching | Finding Articles | Finding Books | Citing Your Sources |

Washburn students may search many of the resources listed here from any computer with Internet access. To access restricted resources, you will be prompted to enter your name and WU ID number.

Help

Call (785)670-1483 or toll free 1-800-736-9060 Send e-mail to refemail@washburn.edu
IM us to chat live with a reference librarian Maps of the library

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Search Tips

Keyword searching
 Allows you to search for the appearance of a word anywhere in an item record in the library catalog or in the full text of a journal article
Phrase searching
 When searching Google, as well as many of the library's article databases, use quotation marks ("teen smoking") to search keywords as a phrase.
AND, OR, NOT
Combine keywords (or phrases) with AND, OR, NOT to search for more than one word at a time and specify the relationship between the words
 

AND
results will contain both terms

nonverbal communication and marriage

OR
results will contain either term

"interpersonal relationships" or "interpersonal communication"

NOT
results will not contain the excluded term

"dating services" not "single parent"
Truncation & Wildcard Searching

Use the asterisk ( * ) symbol at the end of a word to search for variant endings of that word, for example, archiv* will retrieve archive, archives, archivist, and archivists.

Use the question mark ( ? ) symbol within a word to search for variant spellings of that word, for example, wom?n will retrieve woman and women.
Stopwords
 Short words (in, of, at, for, the) which cannot be used as keywords. The use of stopwords in a keyword search, such as communication in marriage, may yield no search results

Internet Searching

What's the difference between the Library's electronic databases and Internet sites reached by using Yahoo or Google? Check out this research guide for the answer. To find more scholarly content on the Internet, try these Internet search tools:
Google Advanced Search Once you know the basics of Google search, you might want to try Advanced Search, which offers numerous options for making your searches more precise and getting more useful results.
Google Scholar Google Scholar, in beta testing, provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search 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. Google Scholar provides limited full text access to articles.
INFOMINE INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information.
Windows Live Academic Search Windows Live Academic is now in beta. It currently indexes content related to computer science, physics, electrical engineering, and related subject areas. Academic Search enables you to search for peer reviewed journal articles contained in journal publisher portals and on the web in locations like Citeseer.

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Finding Articless

Scholarly, Peer-reviewed, Refereed Journal

Popular Magazine

Scholarly journals are often key resources for academic assignments. The articles in a scholarly, academic journal are reviewed and evaluated by experts in the field prior to publication. This process assures the reader that the content is reliable and timely.

Can't tell the difference? Check out this research guide that will help you identify scholarly journals. In some general electronic databases, such as Expanded Academic ASAP and Wilson OmniFile Full-text and ProQuest Research Library, you may limit your search to articles in peer-reviewed journals.
What's the difference?
 
Includes the full-text of 19 journals published by SAGE and participating societies, some journals going back 23 years, encompassing over 5,000 articles.

Explore the following if you need help selecting a topic for an argument paper
  • News magazines
  • Magazines in a particular field
  • CQ Researcher
  • Vital Speeches of the Day (WU Mabee Periodicals Lower level)
To narrow your search to articles that present different points of view, try these strategies
  • Conduct a keyword search for your topic and include some form of the word argue, pros, cons, opposing, viewpoints, against, issues, opinion, or refute.
  • Look for a sub-directory or subheading that includes the phrase Moral and Ethical Aspects, Psychological Aspects, Public Opinion, or Social Aspects
Search these databases to find full-text newspaper articles

Finding articles on a particular topic is a three-step process:

Step 1
 Select an appropriate electronic database from http://www.washburn.edu/mabee/researchTools/elec_dbs.html . Many of our article databases include the full text, in either HTML or PDF format. Research guides are available for many of the electronic databases at http://www.washburn.edu/mabee/researchTools/guides.html .
Step 2
 If the full text isn't available, conduct a "periodical title" search of the library catalog to find out if we subscribe to the journal. Sometimes the Library subscribes to both the print and electronic versions of a journal (see the example).
Step 3
 If the journal is not available from the Mabee Library, request a copy through Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery

Finding Books

The Library's Web-based online catalog is called ATLAS.
Use the library catalog to search for books, course reserves, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, and journal titles (not journal articles). You may search by title, author, subject, a combination of author and title, or by periodical title. Keyword searching using AND, OR, NOT is also supported.

Access it from the Library's home page at http://www.washburn.edu/mabee

Access it directly at http://lib.wuacc.edu
To find books that compile pro/con arguments about contemporary social issues, try these strategies
 Conduct a "keyword" search of the library catalog for opposing viewpoints, at issue, current controversies, contemporary issues, contemporary world issues, reference shelf, taking sides, or library in a book to retrieve a list of titles in these collections.
Need more help?
 Check out this research guide on how to find books in the Mabee Library.

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Citing Your Sources

Style manuals provide the necessary information for documentation and style in writing research papers and reports. Check out the research guides on the different styles if you need help citing your sources.

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http://www.washburn.edu/mabee/crc/courses/cn/cn101.html

February 2007