General Databases
General databases cover a wide variety of topics or disciplines, and also include both scholarly sources, such as peer-reviewed journal articles, and non-scholarly sources, such as newspapers. Searching in these databases is a good way to get started exploring a topic, and finding out about current debates around your topic.
- Research Library This link opens in a new windowCitations of newspaper and periodical articles covering a broad range of subjects, including arts, business, humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new windowProvides current news and scholarly journal articles in all aspects of business, trade, and industry information. Also includes market, industry, and country research.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowProvides access to Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present).
- Statista This link opens in a new windowProvides access to quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and more.
Subject Specific Databases
Subject specific databases usually cover a more focused topic or discipline(s), and contain primarily scholarly source materials. As you learn more about your topic and narrow your research focus, use subject specific databases to locate information from a particular disciplinary perspective.
- Gale in Context: Environmental Studies This link opens in a new windowGale in Context: Environmental Studies (formerly GreenR) is an interdisciplinary resource that offers wide ranging and discussion of issues related to the environment, sustainability, and green technologies. Gale in Context: Environmental Studies is an interactive tool, allowing users to navigate by issue, organization and country portals, with access to popular and primary literature, websites, organizations, podcasts, and video.
- Global Issues (Gale in Context) This link opens in a new windowAn excellent resource for beginning to develop a topic, GIC organizes its content around specific topics. "Browse Issues and Topics" to access multimedia portal pages on some of the world's most important issues.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowOne of the most comprehensive databases in the social sciences, Sociological Abstracts includes coverage of fields including anthropology, economics, education, medicine, community development, philosophy, demography, political science, and social psychology. Includes abstracts of journal articles, conference papers, dissertations, books, and book reviews.
Generating keywords for your searches
To come up with keywords for your research, consider doing the following:
1. Think carefully about your topic. Write it out in a sentence or two.
2. Circle the key concepts in your topic sentences.
3. Brainstorm synonyms or related terms for your key concepts. One approach to brainstorming is to create a concept map. You can do this with simple pen and paper or via free online programs such as Coggle (you will need to sign in with a Google account to use Coggle) or Bubbl.us.
4. These are now your search terms. Experiment with different combinations of the terms as you search in databases.
5. When you successfully find sources that are relevant to your search, pay attention to the keywords and subject terms in the database record and the source itself. This may lead you to additional sources.
Subject Librarian
Research Help Area, Room 112
570.577.1068
carrie.pirmann@bucknell.edu
Office Hours:
Monday - Friday, 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM