LibGuides: TC 302: The Surveillance State, Prof. Sanders: Find Articles

Step 1: Brainstorm Search Terms (Keywords)

Library databases and Google can't be searched the same way so take a few moments to come up with a search strategy before diving into a database.

Step 1: Think about the key concepts of your topic and search those instead of an entire phrases or sentences.

Step 2: Think of other terms you could use that are synonyms or related (they could be a broader or narrower aspect). This often requires that you do a little background research to learn more.

Step 3: Connect your terms using AND and OR:

Remember -

AND narrows your topic (use AND between terms if you want them all to appear in your results)
OR broadens your topic (use OR between terms if you want any, not all, to appear in your results)

Generate Keywords from a Topic
This tool can help you create search terms and formulate an effective search.

Step 2: Search for Articles

Libraries Search Box
Search across many of the Libraries electronic and print resources at once. Includes articles, books, ebooks and more.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Find articles from across disciplines/topics in scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers.
Updated daily. A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Use a Google search to find scholarly sources. Go to GoogleScholar through this link or the link on the Libraries web site to be connected to the Libraries subscriptions instead of hitting a paywall.
Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.
Use this link to access Google Scholar, and see our Google Scholar Guide for information on using this resource.
If you encounter a warning about the security certificate when using the FindIt@UT tool in Google Scholar, you can learn more about that using this guide.

SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Scholarly sources in the social sciences
In addition to full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Includes indexing for books, monographs, conference papers and other non-periodical content sources.
PsycINFO (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
Scholarly sources in psychology
Updated monthly. Indexes and abstracts over 1,700 sources, including international material selected from periodicals written in over 35 languages. Contains current chapter and book coverage with worldwide English-language material published from 1987 to the present, and adds over 60,000 references annually through monthly updates. Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines.
Has over 1.8 million individual records, some dating back to 1887, and includes abstracts from Psychological Abstracts back to 1927, Psychological Bulletin from 1921-1926, and all APA journals and the American Journal of Psychology back to their first issues. Corresponds in part to the print index Psychological Abstracts.
PAIS This link opens in a new window
Scholarly sources in public affairs. Includes international perspectives.
Updated monthly. Bibliographic index with abstracts covering the full range of political, social, and public policy issues. Covers selected journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, and microfiche. More than 1,600 journals and over 8,000 monographs are indexed each year. Includes documents published worldwide in any of six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The subject headings and abstracts are in English.
The PAIS Archive database comprises a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, Volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976. At completion of this conversion, the PAIS Archive contains over 1.23 million records.

Other Databases by Discipline
Use the "Subjects" drop down to find recommended databases. Think about who would research in the area and choose the subect/discipline that way. For example, if you are interested in legal issues around surveillance you might choose law.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Articles from national, state, local and college newspapers from across the US.
Updated continually. Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an interface that offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Effective January 1, 2018, Nexis Uni™ replaces LexisNexis Academic.
Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new window
Articles from major newspaper across the US.
Newspaper Source Plus provides a full-text digital collection of the world's major news content. It includes millions of articles from newspapers, newswires and news magazines. In addition, it offers television and radio transcripts and ongoing daily updates from popular news sources.

Google News Search
Use Google to search for news article. If it is behind a paywall, search the box on the Libraries home page to see if we subscribe digitially.

Type of Tool

About

Examples

Multidisciplinary search tools

Include a range of sources (scholarly articles, magazine articles, books, patents, etc.) types from many disciplines
Useful if scholars from multiple disciplines would write about your topic or if you don't know where to start

Academic Search Complete

Libraries Search Box

Google Scholar

Scholarly Articles

Narrower databases that search the scholarly sources in a particular discipline
Useful for digging deeply into the scholarly literature in a particular field and seeing what they contribute to your topic

SocSci Index

PsycInfo

PAIS

(all linked on Scholarly Articles tab)

Step 3: Get the Full Article

If you don’t see a .pdf of the article you want, click to find it in another database or in print in the Libraries.

If it is only in print in the Libraries or we don’t own the article, click Get a Scan to have the article emailed to you.

What kind of source is this?

Popular, Scholarly or Trade?
This grid helps you determine whether a source is from a scholarly journal, trade journal or popular newspaper or magazine.

Mine the Works Cited List

Pro tip for smart research! When you find a useful article, look at the bibliography to find other useful articles relevant to your research. Then look up the article title in the Libraries search box on the Libraries web site to get to the article.