LibGuides: ENG BC 3104_004 The Art of the Essay: Background Research and Scholarly Articles

A selection of Databases

JSTOR
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added on an ongoing basis.
Project Muse
Full-text versions of peer-reviewed journals from many of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies, as well as thousands of ebooks, with emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
ProQuest
This resource includes citations and full text articles in academic & professional disciplines, e.g., business, economics, gender studies, health, literature, management, political science; as well as news and general interest items. Search multiple databases simultaneously or select individually from among ABI/INFORM (business); Accounting & tax; the American Medical Association; Dissertations; Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, Research Library, or major current and historical US newspapers (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, etc).
EBSCOhost research databases
Allows you to search simultaneously across more than one hundred databases in a variety of fields. Includes key databases in Art, Architecture, Business, History, Education, Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences, and Science.
Humanities Full Text
Brings full text (starting 1995) plus abstracts and bibliographic indexes (starting 1984) of noted scholarly sources in the humanities, as well as lesser known specialized magazines. The database indexes, abstracts and delivers the full text of feature articles, interviews, obituaries, bibliographies, original works of fiction, drama, and poetry, book reviews, and reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, operas, plays, radio and television programs.
Factiva
Factiva provides access to global news and business information, including Wall Street Journal, local newspapers, same-day newswires, company reports, and media programs. Provides company information including market data and competitors.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Oxford English dictionary online (OED)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from Dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED started life more than 150 years ago. Updates revise and extend the OED at regular intervals.
Credo
Credo is a database of background content. It's full-text and can help you learn the basics of any topic. Start your research here to focus your topic, find keywords and people, and discover more in-depth books and articles
Oxford Reference Library
Brings together digitized entries from Oxford's Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias, spanning multiple subject areas.

Encyclopedia's, Dictionaries, and other "reference sources" can be a great place to get background information! Background information can provide context and help ground you and help you to think about more questions. You've heard of the world's largest encyclopedia, Wikipedia. You are more likely to find articles on obscure topics in Wikipedia than you would anywhere else. But is Wikipedia accurate? While Wikipedia can be edited by anyone in the world (including you!), scholarly encyclopedias like Encyclopedia Britannica are written and edited by experts in their fields. However, 2005 study in the journal Nature weighed the accuracy of science articles on Wikipedia against the more scholarly Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia was found to be nearly as accurate in the 42 articles investigated. Encyclopedia Britannica refuted these claims. When using Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia for that matter, it is wise to verify what you find.

Strengths of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is updated frequently. New information can be, and often is, added to the site within minutes. Due to editorial limitations, scholarly encyclopedias are usually updated annually.
Because Wikipedia crowd sourced, there is the potential for a broader authorship than is found in academic publications.
Citations in Wikipedia offer a wider array of materials, including articles and resources that are available for free and online.

Weaknesses of Wikipedia

Editors on Wikipedia are not necessarily experts. Authorship on Wikipedia is often anonymous or obscured.
Articles are always changing, making them difficult to cite in your research. An article you read today, may look quite different tomorrow.
Articles can be vandalized, providing wildly inaccurate information.

Ways to use Wikipedia

Use Wikipedia to get a general idea about a topic you are interested in.
Wikipedia is great for generating keywords for further searching in CLIO and elsewhere.
Check the citations, recommended resources and external links to guide you to more scholarly work.

- Thanks to Suze Meyers for the image and Meredith Wiener for the overview of Wikipedia