Library Essentials: Topic Guide
Library Quick Links
Style Guides & Tools
- MLA at Purdue (Owl)A comprehensive, authority source for everything MLA.
- APA at Purdue (OWL)A comprehensive, authority source for everything APA.
The CRAAP Test
- The CRAAP TestAre your sources crappy or not? Evaluate your sources using this test.
Are your sources crappy or not? Finding relevant and useful books and articles are very important when researching a topic. Good sources will give your research credibility, while poor resources will take away from your paper. Evaluate your sources using this test.
Objective News and Opposing Viewpoints
The following databases offer in-depth, non-biased coverage of many of today's important issues:
If you are studying opposing viewpoints of a local topic, be sure to consult the Researching Local Issues LibGuide.
Keywords
Stuck in your searches? Keywords are the key to effective searches:
About This Guide
Hello! This guide is intended as a companion to my class instruction on library research. Similar to an electronic handout, this guide contains links to the library resources introduced in class (and possibly a few more).
Remember to ask your librarian for help! Happy research and discovery!
Source: NASA/Tracy Caldwell Dyson, via Wikimedia Commons
1. Gathering Background Information: Encyclopedias
Begin your research by searching for background information on your topic, using one of the Reference Databases listed below.
- Credo Reference
Provides full-text access to a large digital collection of reference materials. In addition to dictionaries and encyclopedias, biographies, maps and images are avaialble.Watch a quick walkthrough of Credo:
- Encyclopedia Britannica
Provides access to the complete encyclopedia and includes many illustrations, photographs, and audio & video clips.
2. Gathering More Background Information and Topic History: Books
Using Books for Research
- Be sure to notice the book's publication date. Oftentimes statistics or current issues published in books become outdated quickly. Rely on books more for background information and topic history.
- Keep in mind that effective research does not always require that you read a book cover to cover. In fact, a book with information related to your topic may be mostly focused on other topics.
- You can easily find an introductory chapter that lays out the book's basic premise and a concluding chapter that gives a summary of the argument. At the very least, try to read these sections.
- Voyager - UHMC's collection of reference and circulating books housed in the campus library. Mobile interface.
Electronic Book Collections
- ebrary - UHMC Library's subscription to more than 70,000 academic, full-text ebooks.
Watch a quick walkthrough of ebrary:
3. Digging Deeper: Newspaper, Magazine and Journal Articles
The library has several different databases available for you to use for your research. EBSCOhost is a database of databases -- this means when you do a search, Ebsco is searching through numerous different databases to find your results. This can yeild a lot of potential articles, so narrowing down your search is important.
Watch this walkthrough of Ebsco's Academic Search Complete:
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar is now linked to the UHMC Library. From this freely accessible, scholarly web search engine, go to Settings > Library Links to sync your Google Scholar page to the full text articles available at your library. Articles indicated with "Get Article" are available through UHMC Library.
Subject Guide
Images & Videos
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowFOD is a comprehensive collection of educational videos and films covering academic and career and technical educations subject areas. Available streaming, 24/7.
- Library DVDsSearch Hawaii Voyager to access a list of DVDs in the UH Libraries System. Select Videorecording/DVD to limit to DVD format. UHMC Library has many Hawaii-related films in DVD format (useful for some local topics).
- Wikimedia CommonsA copyright-free media repository containing hundreds of thousand images. A great alternative Google Images.