Find Sources - UGS 303: The Cold War and the War on Terror - Moser - LibGuides at University of Texas at Austin

Find Articles on a Topic

Choose a place to search
Keywords for searching a database

For this assignment, you might need several types of sources:

Source Type	Start Here
Encyclopedia Articles/Background on your topic	CQ researcher contains reports on topics written by journalists; Gale eBooks contains collected encyclopedia articles. You might be able to find background on a conflict or technology in either of these tools. Use background information to learn vocabulary, basic facts, and brainstorm keywords.
Scholarly Articles	The library databases, see recommendations below
Journalism/News	Google or the UT Libraries NexisUni database. Make sure to evaluate unfamiliar publications.
Government Information	Congressional Research Services reports; Use Google search tips to limit to .gov sites, or visit the site of a specific government agency (like the Department of Defense).

Keyword tool
Use this tool to help you brainstorm keywords on your topic.

Searching databases is different than searching Google. Distil what you're looking for into a few key terms or phrases, rather than whole sentences.

Is the academic achievement of immigrant students impacted by national policy debates on immigration?)

For each main concept, brainstorm a few synonyms and related terms (broader or narrower) that get at that concept:

Key Concepts

immigrant students

academic achievement

policy debates

Related Terms

undocumented students (more specific)

immigrants

learning

academic performance

achievement (more general)

success

academic success

public debate

policy ideas

policy proposals

attitudes (more general/related)

negative attitudes

positive attitudes

Combine key terms using AND and OR:
- AND narrows your search by looking for articles with all of the words (your two or three key concepts should be connected with AND, because you need all of them represented in useful articles).
- OR broadens your search by looking for articles with any of the words (synonyms and related terms should be separated by OR - they get at the same key concepts, so any of them are useful).
Try different combinations of your keywords to get better results as you search.

Keywords

Databases and Web Resources for your Class

Library Databases
Web Resources

Background and overviews

CQ Researcher
Unlimited users.
Updated weekly. Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. Every report is written by an experienced journalist and features comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue with numerous charts, graphs and sidebar articles.
Gale eBooks
Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources. Fully searchable across all files.

For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide

Scholarly Articles (mostly)

Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary
JSTOR
Multidisciplinary
America: History and Life
History-focused.
PAIS
Policy and Political Science-focused.

News/Journalism

Nexis Uni
Unlimited users.
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.

Google Scholar
Use our link to be connected to UT Library resources.

Google News
This is a good source for current news across publications.
Congressional Research Service
Reports created to brief members of congress.

Google Search Tips:

Search only a specific site (ex: nih.gov) or domain (ex: .edu or .gov) by typing in your search followed by site:.org, site:.gov (ex: HIV/AIDS prevention site:nih.gov)
Search for an exact phrase by putting your search terms in quotation marks (ex: “over the counter”)

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What are databases?

This video, from RMIT University, explains what a database is...

Where's the Article?

If you don’t see a .pdf of the article you want, click FIND IT AT UT 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. This option will take a few days.