LibGuides: English Composition / First Year Writing: Find Sources

Steps to Research: Help Tools

Steps to Research: PDF Describes 6 easy-to-follow steps for doing research.

OneSearch

Excellent place to start your research.
Source Types: eBooks, eBook chapters, articles.

OneSearch: Basic Article Search How to do a basic search for an article in OneSearch.
OneSearch: Advanced Article Search How to do an advanced search to find articles.
OneSearch: Books and eBooks A step-by-step guide (with pictures) on how to search for a book by title or find books by keywords.
Worksheet 1: Getting Started and Using OneSearch

General Databases

Databases are specialized search tools that the library subscribes to. They are powerful online platforms that enable you to search for sources and access articles and other materials not available through Google.

The databases below are great places to begin and find articles:

Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Contains contextual information and opinions on hundreds of today's hottest social issues. Drawing on the acclaimed Greenhaven Press series, the database features continuously updated viewpoints, topic overviews, full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, statistics, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Provides over 20,000 indexed and abstracted journals including 6,600 full-text journals and magazines, nearly 6,000 peer-reviewed journals. PDF content dating back to 1887.
To see which titles are available in full-text, as well as the names of all titles indexed and abstracted, check the EBSCOhost Database Coverage List and Title List by Subject . Updated daily.

Subject Databases

Search for articles within a specific subject, such as engineering, sociology, or education.

Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window Provides index and full text for more than 3,000 scholarly business journals, including full text for nearly 1000 peer-reviewed business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business.
This database provides full text (PDF) for more than 300 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922. Updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost.
Criminal Justice Abstracts w/Full-text This link opens in a new window Provides indexing and abstracting for criminal justice, forensic science, law enforcement, corrections, and more - over 175 journals and about 45 are available full-text online to the researcher.
The subjects covered represent the entire range of criminal justice topics including: criminal law and behavioral sciences, criminal procedure, corrections, search and seizure, evidence, family law, forensic sciences, policing practices and procedures, quantitative issues and research methods, social science issues and law enforcement, trends and innovations in law enforcement, victims' rights, etc. Coverage: Varies; most titles from 1986 - the present. A variety of help options are available:
Education Full-Text This link opens in a new window Provides over 750 periodicals including 450 peer-reviewed journals in the fields of education administration, teaching methods, literacy, funding, and more.
Full text coverage begins in 1994, abstracting begins in 1984 and indexing begins in 1983.
Engineering Village This link opens in a new window Engineering Village is a discovery platform that includes access to Compendex (Computerized Engineering Index), a comprehensive bibliographic database of scientific and technical engineering research available, covering all engineering disciplines. It includes millions of bibliographic citations and abstracts from over 5000 engineering journals and conference proceedings. Coverage: 1969-present.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window Offers interdisciplinary content including approximately 2,600 academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials.
On occasions, you may encounter problems opening PDFs. The reason for this to happen is most likely due to the time out error. This could be due to a slow internet connection or a large download size. Many times, articles with images contained in them will time out the download.
To resolve this, right click on the link "Proceed to PDF" and select "Save Target As..." (or "Save Link as..." for Firefox). This will allow you to save the PDF to your computer and should allow for a faster, more successful download.
If the problem persists, check the PDF Help Page at JSTOR
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Includes access to over 1,800 professional journals, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations, published internationally. Additionally, there are more than 8 million cited references in 185,000 journal articles, books, and book chapters.
Subject Coverage
- Applied psychology
- Communication systems
- Developmental psychology
- Educational psychology
- Experimental human and animal psychology
- Personality
- Psychological and physical disorders
- Physiological psychology and neuroscience
- Professional personnel and issues
- Psychometrics and statistics
- Social psychology
- Social processes and issues
- Sports psychology and leisure
- Treatment and prevention
PubMed This link opens in a new window PubMed comprises over 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content in library subscription databases, from PubMed Central, and publisher web sites.
GUIDES:
The PubMed User Guide provides the information in search, cite, save, share, and other areas. Please visit the Guide for guidance. To learn more about how to navigate PubMed, visit PubMed Tutorial.
SocIndex with Full-Text This link opens in a new window Covers a broad range of studies, including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, religion, racial studies and social work. In addition to full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Complete with extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers and other non-periodical content sources, the database also includes searchable cited references.

More Databases or Help

The library has 300+ databases.

To browse databases by subject, go to the A-Z Database List and select your subject from the drop-down menu.

Having trouble?

Contact a Librarian
Use the chat icon (via any library webpage) to chat with a Cal State LA Librarian
- Monday through Thursday from 10am - 6pm, Friday 10am - 5pm.
- After hours, you will be connected with our partner librarians across the globe

GoogleScholar

GoogleScholar searches the entire web for scholarly materials.

Downside of using Google Scholar:

There is no way to search for only peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.
It lists unpublished works, such as dissertations or theses, without a way to filter them out.
You will get millions of results organized by popularity (highest cited).

Upsides of using Google Scholar:

You can easily search for an article by title.
You can press the "cited by" button to find similar articles and to see who else has cited the article.
Google Scholar can recognize you as a Cal State LA student so you have better access to articles (see below)

How to get Google Scholar to recognize you are a Cal State LA Student:

If Google Scholar knows you are a Cal State LA student, you will see "Find it @ Cal State LA" links, pictured below.

If you are on-campus, access Google Scholar from the library home page to ensure you are connected to Cal State LA's articles.

If you are off-campus, access Google Scholar from the library home page. If you do not go through the library homepage, make sure you add Cal State LA to your institutions:

Statistics

Sage Data CORE This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the Data-Planet repository of standardized and structured statistical data. Users can search and browse 25 billion data points in over 4.3 billion datasets sourced from over 75 authoritative government and private sources.
The database allows users to manipulate datasets, compare multiple indicators, chart trends over time and spatially represent data without requiring additional software programs. Multiple export options are provided. LibGuides: http://data-planet.libguides.com

There are over 250 LibGuides on a variety of states, countries, and content.
Homeland Security Digital Library This link opens in a new window
The HSDL collection provides quick access to over 50,000 important U.S. policy documents, presidential directives, and national strategy documents as well as specialized resources from universities, organizations and local and state agencies.
The California State University - Los Angeles is authorized to search the Full Collection (174,100 resources).

University Library

English Composition / First Year Writing