Any source of information which can be searched
Library Resources for a General Audience
Click on the buttons below for access to general audience reference sources from Oakton Library databases.
An excellent, encyclopedic source for background information on all topics.
Business, marketing, demographic, and economic statistics along with content in the form of infographics, company/industry dossiers, market analytics, and forecasts.
Each issue examines a single "hot" topic with comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue. Includes charts, graphs and sidebar articles -- plus a pro-con feature, a chronology, lengthy bibliographies and a list of contacts.
Database of contemporary social issues with content structured to promote critical-thinking skills. It contains reference book titles, pro and con viewpoint articles, and a variety of periodicals, podcasts, reviewed Web links, images, statistical tables, charts, and graphs.
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources with an interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Intro
Starting Your Research
| Interest | Mind Maps | Topic | Viewpoints | Summarize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Start with a general interest. This might be a topic with your discipline or class. |
Keep track of the different ways your topic is being talked about. Create a mind map of all the subjects, keywords, and phrases used to talk about your topic. | Identify one subject area for your research topic. | Consider different viewpoints. Learn how experts in the field are talking about your topic and their stances. | Finally, write a brief summary of your paper goals and highlight any arguments you will be making. |
Research Definitions
| Database |
A database is a collection of related data items that are linked and structured in a way that makes it easy to access data. Storing data in a database allows us to search for information very quickly and efficiently. It can be sorted in different ways and then printed out as a report. |
| Truncation | To shorten or reduce |
| Boolean | A search that involves the use of Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT). In a Boolean search, these operators are used to refine the scope of the search.The AND and NOT operators narrow the scope of the search, while the OR operator broadens it. |
| Journalism | Journalism means simultaneously reporting the news and participating in political discourse; it refers to both public affairs and cultural or everyday matters; it implies sometimes an active news-gathering persona who intones in a distinctive voice and sometimes an effaced reporter; it is variously a practice of advocacy, revelation, neutrality, literary comment, and humor. |
| Editor | One who edits; one who is in charge of assembling the raw footage into a completed work, generally under the direction of the director and producer. |
| Attribution | The processes by which people make inferences from observations. |
| Widely available, usually cheaper to acquire, and can be understood by almost every person with basic literacy skills. They tend to promulgate known ideas and theories. These works may be professionally edited, but do not go through a jury process. | |
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The purpose of Scholarly or Academic sources is to share information within the subject field and they are based on original research and experimentation. They are suitable for academics, and are supported by a system of learning and study. They are less widely circulated than popular sources and may be understandable only to those who work or study in a particular field. In addition, scholarly sources are juried either through peer review or the referee process to determine that the research meets a standard of accuracy, originality, and scholarly integrity. |
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| Reference source |
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| Citation |
the quoting of a passage, book, author, etc.; a reference to an authority or a precedent. |