Home - GOVT 2306 - Article review (Aurora Borunda) - Library Research Guides at El Paso Community College

Search Terms

Choose something you're interested in. Search it and then add "AND texas" to your search string.

Sample search terms to try to get you started!

wind turbines
solar power
LGBTQ rights
voter suppression
abortion law
electric grid
women's health
immigration
border patrol
trans rights
civil rights
anti racism

Tools for Citing

Noodle Tools (Remote Access)
Create a free account to organize all your research projects and keep your citations, sources, annotations and research papers all in one handy online place. See notecard for info on APA in text citation format. Easily print bibliography or works cited pages including with annotations.
Citation Guide (latest versions)
APA style poster (in text citation and more) -- Purdue OWL
MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources (Purdue OWL)
APA Formatting and Style Guide (7th Edition) (Purdue OWL)

Bias and Fact Checks

Media Bias Fact Check
Most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet. Sources evaluated by news value & reliability and bias of content. Use the search feature to check the bias of any source by name or URL.
News Literacy: Is it "Fake News"?
List of other fact checking sites compiled by American University

Voting Guide

Want to learn how to register to vote and how the voting process works? Click on this link:

Your Voice, Your Vote: How to be an Informed Voter
Information on the voting process in El Paso and Southern NM and why voting is so important!

Databases

Academic Search Complete [Full Text | Ebsco | Off-campus access]

The Atlantic

Time magazine

New Republic

The Nation (weekly)

Policy Review

National Journal

Commentary

Christian Science Monitor

Washington Monthly

Congressional Digest

World Affairs

National Review

Example: source: New Republic and keywords: voting or election. Ctrl-F to find articles of 4 or more pages

Academic OneFile [Full text | Gale | Off-campus access]

New York Times
Washington Post

Advanced search: Publication title and keyword. You can narrow down by document type: article (rather than brief article) and then scan for articles over 1000 words.

How do I figure out what journal title is in a database?

Publication Finder -- [Full Text | Ebsco | Off-campus access]

Find more databases at the Library's page: https://www.epcc.edu/Services/Libraries

Background Searching

Ebsco Discovery Services (EPCC)
Find books, ebooks, journals, newspapers, magazines, DVD's, etc.
Credo Reference
Credo is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and hundreds of videos.

Search steps

KEYWORD SEARCH your topic. Use boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT to refine your search.

AND will limit your search results.
OR will widen your results.
NOT takes away certain terms from your search.

Think of it as ordering pizza. I want pepperoni AND sausage but NOT pineapple. (Pepperoni AND sausage) NOT pineapple.

REFINE YOUR SEARCH by looking at the subjects or descriptors of the article and click on one to redo your search.

CLICK ON "ADVANCED SEARCH" to include the name of the publication and choose "SO" SOURCE" from the pulldown.

CHECK LENGTH with ctrl-F to find either page length: 4p, 5p, 6p etc. in Academic Search Complete. Ctrl F for 2, or 3, etc. in Academic One File (Gale) . Remember 250 words is generally considered a page, so look for over 1250 words.

SAVE or EMAIL or PRINT article and save citation in APA format.