Library Research Checklist - PHIL 101 - Hutchinson - Fall 2024 - LibGuides at Christopher Newport University

Print Books and Electronic Books

Search the library catalog:

Use the Map It button Map it button image to locate print books

You can also use these databases for ebooks and print books located at CNU and other libraries:

WorldCat Discovery This link opens in a new window
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WorldCat Discovery lets you search a wide variety of resources all at once. Includes links to full-text resources as well as information on the Trible Library's print collection and information on resources available from around the world. Find something you need but we don't have access - CNU students, faculty and staff can request items through the interlibrary loan service!
WorldCat FirstSearch This link opens in a new window
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Try WorldCat Discovery for a newer and more robust experience!
Catalog of books, web resources, and other material worldwide. Many of these materials are available for CNU students, faculty and staff by using the library's interlibrary loan service.

Through the interlibrary loan (ILL) links in WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat FirstSearch, you can request books not available at Trible Library. I use Discovery to find ebooks as well as physical books. More specifically, in addition to items CNU does not hold, the database indexes ebooks to which we have access but that are not found in online catalog. FirstSearch is useful for ILL requests for print books, sorting them based on the number of libraries that hold the works. You can also place requests directly from your ILL@CNU account. For more ebooks click here.

Course text: A Workbook for Arguments : a Complete Course in Critical Thinking

This book is also on reserve at the main circulation desk in Trible Library.

Evaluation

Key Points for Evaluation

Purpose of Article: Why was the article written? To:

persuade the reader to do something?
- For example: vote a certain way, purchase an item, attend an event
inform the reader?
- For example: results of a study/experiment, what happened at an event
prove something?
- For example: that a behavior is bad/good, a method works/doesn't work

Type of Journal: For college-level term papers, information should be obtained mostly from scholarly journals.

Scholarly Journals contain articles describing high quality research that has been reviewed by experts in the field prior to publication.
Trade magazines may be useful for topics in business or where economic data is needed. There are also good for learning what the current "hot topics" are in an area.
Popular magazines, such as Time and Newsweek, should be used sparingly, or not at all.

Organization and Content: Is the material organized and focused? Is the argument or presentation understandable? Is this original research, a review of previous research, or an informative piece?

Bias (of the publisher): Some publications have an inherent bias that will impact articles printed in them. Is the journal:

left/liberal?
right/conservative?
center?
an alternative press?
published by a political action (PAC) group?

Date of Article: Some topics, such as those in the health sciences, require current information. Other subjects, such as geology, value older material as well as current. Know the time needs of your topic and examine the timeliness of the article; is it:

up-to-date,
out-of-date, or
timeless?

Bibliography: Scholarly works always contain a bibliography of the resources that were consulted. The references in this list should be in sufficient quantity and be appropriate for the content. Look for:

if a bibliography exists,
if the bibliography is short or long,
if the bibliography is selective or comprehensive,
if the references are primary sources (ex. journal articles) or only secondary sources (ex. encyclopedias),
if the references are contemporary to the article or much older, and
if the citation style is clear and consistent.

Usefulness: Is the article relevant to the current research project? A well-researched, well-written, etc. article is not going to be helpful if it does not address the topic at hand. Ask, "is this article useful to me?" If it is a useful article, does it:

support an argument
refute an argument
give examples (survey results, primary research findings, case studies, incidents)
provide "wrong" information that can be challenged or disagreed with productively

Authority: Is the author an expert in this field? Where is the author employed? What else has he/she written? Has he/she won awards or honors?

Coverage: Does the article cover the topic comprehensively, partially, or is it an overview?

Audience: For what type of reader is the author writing? This ties in with the type of journal, as popular magazine are geared to the general reader, while trade magazines are for the specialist and scholarly journals are directed at researchers, scholars or experts in the field. Is the article for:

general readers,
students (high school, college, graduate),
specialists or professionals,
researchers or scholars?

Context: Information is contextual. Who, what, when, where, why, and how will impact whether or not a resource is useful to you. If you are doing a survey of popular culture, for example, popular magazines would be a useful primary source.

How to Evaluate Journal Articles

Articles

Argument & Debate Databases:

FACTS.com - Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window
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Explores and analyzes hundreds of hot topics in politics, business, government, crime, law, energy, education, health, family, science, foreign policy, race, rights, society, and culture. Updated weekly, with a wire-service newsfeed providing the latest headline stories, Issues & Controversies offers in-depth articles designed to inspire thought-provoking debates and research papers. Since its inception in 1995, Issues & Controversies has been a core student and educator resource for understanding and writing about contemporary events and conflicts, as well as for debate prep. It also provides comprehensive coverage and analysis every year of the National High School Debate Topic.

idebate.net Debatabase
Debatabase is an authoritative collection of over seven hundred debates mostly written by experienced debaters. They cover topics from the affirmative action to Zimbabwe, on all sorts of themes including politics, economics, religion, culture, science and society.
Pew Research Center

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News Databases:

New York Times

FACTS.com - World News Digest This link opens in a new window
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Provides an archival record of domestic and international news. It covers all major political, social, and economic events since November 1940 and is is updated weekly.
NewsBank This link opens in a new window
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Access a variety of topics through full-text newspapers (U.S. and International), magazines, and more through a variety of collections.
ProQuest News & Newspapers Databases This link opens in a new window
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Combined search of available ProQuest newspaper databases.

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General Databases:

EBSCOHost Research Databases This link opens in a new window
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EBSCOhost Tutorial
Provides access to databases covering a variety of topics. Provides access to full-text for some items.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR Tutorial
An online database of full-content articles from various journals in many subject areas including, but not limited to African American studies, Ecology, Economics, History, Literature and Mathematics. Many journals start with the first volume and issue; current issues are usually not available due to an embargo period. Also includes access to primary source materials and images.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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ProQuest Tutorial
Searches a variety of databases covering a wide range of topics. It provides access to full-text/image of many journals and ebooks, as well as other data.

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Philosophy & Religion Databases:

Arts & Humanities Database This link opens in a new window
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This database features hundreds of titles covering Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies.
ATLA Religion - with selected full text This link opens in a new window
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This database produced by the American Theological Library Association, indexes journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. It also includes full-text access to ATLA's online collection of major religion and theology journals. The database begins in 1949, but also includes indexing for some journal titles extending back into the nineteenth century.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new window
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Based on the multi-volume reference work, this online Encyclopedia is full text and covers most philosophical areas of study including Anglo-American, ethical and political, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, continental and contemporary philosophy
MLA International Bibliography via EBSCO (with full-text) This link opens in a new window
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Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. International in scope, it includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations, with links to full text in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other resources. The database also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals and the MLA Thesaurus, a proprietary, searchable collection of thousands of subject terms, and personal names used in indexing the bibliography.
Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
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Produced by the Philosopher’s Information Center, this current and comprehensive bibliographic database covers scholarly research in all major fields of philosophy. Considered the most thorough index of journal literature on the subject, this resource features author-written abstracts covering scholarly research published in journals and books, including contributions to anthologies and book reviews.
Religion & Philosophy Collection This link opens in a new window
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Covering such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy, this database offers nearly 300 full text journals, including more than 250 peer-reviewed titles. In addition to the full text, indexing and abstracts are provided for all journals in the database. Full text information in this database dates as far back as 1975 for some titles.
Religion Database This link opens in a new window
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This database provides a wide range of primarily full-text, international periodicals for diverse religious and spiritual studies, covering formal theological studies of major religions, as well as the most recent trends and scholarly thought. Included are titles from religious publishing bodies and nondenominational organizations. The resource reflects a wide spectrum of religious belief systems and supports the global study of religion.

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Off-Campus Access:

For off-campus access instructions, click here: Off-Campus Access

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Other Options:

Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL@CNU) to request books or journal articles that are not available at CNU; for example if you find an article in one of our databases but can't locate the full text of the article.

Google Scholar can be a useful resource. Read this information first to get the most out of it.

Journals

Browse journals by subject

Fact Checking Resources

Other Library Guides

Terms and Searching within Databases

Certain databases have incorporated natural language processing into their search engines. In Ebsco databases like ATLA, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philosopher's Index, and Religion & Philosophy Collection, try selecting SmartText Searching in the Search Modes box: "Enter as much text for your search as you want - a phrase, a sentence, paragraph, or even whole page." In ProQuest databases like Religion Database and Arts & Humanities Database, the search will automatically interpret your terms, finding variant forms of the words you enter. While not as "smart" as the Ebsco SmartText search functionality, this will assist in finding articles on your topic.

Trible Library's online catalog is not "smart" in this way. When you look for books, make sure to either search for each spelling independently or do an advanced search which connects the alternate spellings in the search fields with the operator "OR".