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ENGL 201: Intermediate Composition - Harris, Nora (Spring 2023) : Find Articles

Selecting and Searching Databases by Subject or Type

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You can access databases from the library home page (library.wisc.edu). Use the dropdown menu at the Catalog button to navigate to Databases

There are several ways to browse and select databases: 

Search by the title of the database (for example, 'Academic Search').

Use the Browse by Subject/Type page to discover databases that cover your media's topic.

Go to the Introductory Databases page to find good starting databases in over 15 subject areas.

Visit the Top 10 Databases page to quickly access a selection of popularly-used databases. 

Suggested Databases for This Class

Start with these databases...

The following databases are the most focused on different kinds of communication media:

  • Communication and Mass Media Complete: Database from the EBSCO company covering advertising, marketing, film/video, game studies, journalism, communication, mass media, linguistics, rhetoric, language, logic, and other closely related fields.
  • Film and Television Literature Index: Database from the EBSCO company covering articles, film reviews, and book reviews related to film and television from 30 countries. Includes both scholarly and popular film and TV sources.  Covers other audio-visual social media forms/platforms, like YouTube, game streaming, podcasting....

Databases that cover kinds of media 

  • MLA International Bibliography: Modern Language Association International Bibliography, an Ebsco database, includes critical works on literature, language, linguistics, film, and folklore.
  • Academic Search: Large, multidisciplinary EBSCO database encompassing most topics.
  • ProQuest One Business:  Business-related database of journal articles, newspapers, market research, dissertations, books, videos.  Covers advertising and commercials as well.

More databases, specific to subjects

Depending on what topics your piece of media addresses, you may want to look at databases related to education, history, music, psychology, or sociology, just to name a few topics.

Use the Browse by Subject/Type page to discover databases that cover your media's topic.  

Search Tips

  • Use AND to combine different words to find all those words, in any order.
    • parodies AND speeches 
  • Use OR to combine similar words or phrases to find either of the words or phrases.
    • sketches OR skits
  • Use quotation marks to find words as a phrase
    • "american indians"
  • Use an asterisk ( * ) to find varied ends of words.
    • disab* will find disabilitiy, disabilities, and disabled 
  • Review "subject headings" or "descriptors" to identify additional and useful search terms.
  • Apply limits or filters to your results (by date, document type, or other). 

Getting to the Full Article

Follow  Check Find It for availability. A new window will open... (Find It button) or the "Find It at UW Madison" link in most databases to:

  • access the full article (when available)
  • determine if the journal is available in print (Library Catalog)
  • request a copy of the article (PDF) if the full article is not available online (Request a Copy link)

If you already have a citation, use the Citation Search to find the full article.

Understand the Peer Review Process

Scholarly articles undergo a peer review process before they are published. This means that experts in the field are invited by the journal editors to review the quality of the article, and make suggestions for improvements before publication. 

This video explains the peer review process: