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RS 316U/HIS 317L/AMS 315 - Graber

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Find Articles on a Topic

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

Source Type Start Here

Scholarly Articles

The Library Databases, see recommendations below

Primary Sources 

Library Databases (especially historical newspapers); Primary Sources Guide
Journalism/News Google (current news) or the UT Libraries NexisUni database. Make sure to evaluate unfamiliar publications. 

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

  1.  Freedom of religion and public religious monuments
  2. For each main concept, brainstorm a few synonyms and related terms (broader or narrower) that get at that concept:
    • Key Concepts 

      Freedom of Religion Public religious monuments
      Related Terms

       

      First amendment

      Freedom of speech

      separation of church and state

      Public monuments

      10 commandments

      Temple of Satan

  3. 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).
  4. Try different combinations of your keywords to get better results as you search.

Databases

Multidisciplinary Databases

Subject Specific Databases

News

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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.

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