Research Guides: First Year Seminars: FYS 117-3 Poor Like Us

The Research Process

Finding Background Information

Reference books are a great place to start exploring a topic. In addition to general information, they include references that can guide you to more resources — saving you time and effort. This is also a good way to find synonyms or alternate terms that might be useful.

Gale Reference eBooks This link opens in a new window
Provides a database of encyclopedias and reference sources for research. Coverage include the Arts, Business, Education, the Environment, History, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Religion, Science and Social Science. 2000 – present.
Issues and Controversies This link opens in a new window
Provides articles about more than 800 hot topics in business, politics, government, education, and popular culture. Updated weekly, with links to a 12-year back-file, Issues and Controversies offers in-depth articles made to inspire thought-provoking debates.
CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Provides research and analysis of political issues, news, the American Congress, social trends, elections, international affairs, and more. Subscribed sub-collections include: CQ Almanac, Congress Collection, CQ Magazine, and Voting and Elections Collection. 1923 – present.

Finding Books (And Articles)

Use MUSCAT Plus to find books we have at Musselman Library. If you search "Everything" you can find books, articles, and more!

MUSCAT Plus
Musselman Library's catalog. Search the library's holdings for books, journals, magazines, newspapers, videos, DVDs, sound recordings, and more. TIP: Start with a keyword search and then continue your search using relevant subject headings.

Finding Articles

The library subscribes to more than 300 different databases, and they all work in different ways. Deciding what kind of information you want and what perspective you want that information to be presented from can help you choose the right search tool for that part of your research process.

From a General Perspective

ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Provides access to thousands of full-text scholarly journals, trade and professional titles, newspapers, magazines, dissertations, working papers, case studies, and market reports. Content covers all major subject areas, including business, health and medical, social sciences, arts and humanities, education, science and technology, and religion.

From a Social Science Perspective

EconLit This link opens in a new window
Provides citations and abstracts of journals, books and dissertations in economics literature. An expanded version of the Journal of Economic Literature, EconLit covers both economic theory and application and indexes over 1,000 journals. 1969 – present.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides citations to sociology, social work, & other social sciences articles from 1963-present. Indexes over 5,300 journals.

From a Humanist Perspective

Gender Studies This link opens in a new window
Combines Women’s Studies International and Men’s Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues. GSD covers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia from 1972 to present.
America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides citations to articles on American and Canadian history. Articles date from 1964 – present. Includes some full-text links.

First Year Seminars: FYS 117-3 Poor Like Us

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The Research Process

Finding Background Information

Finding Books (And Articles)

Finding Articles

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