Finding Scholarly and Popular Sources in Library Databases
You must use the library's online databases to find your research sources for the cause/effect essay.
You may not use the open web (Google or another search engine) to find sources.
Remember that if you ever need help using a databases, librarians are available to answer your questions and walk you through searching.
- CyFair Library DatabasesThis page organizes all of our databases. Try some of the most popular at the top of the page, or scroll down and open a menu to explore databases in that subject area.
This video describes how to find the databases from the Lone Star College homepage and how to log in to them.
Recommended Databases
Academic Search Complete is our biggest, most comprehensive database. It's a great place to start looking for more detailed information about your topic, after you've already found some background information.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
(EBSCO) A scholarly multi-disciplinary database that provides full text, indexing, and abstracts, videos and images from journals, magazines and newspapers. Full text of articles from 6500+ journals, magazines and newspapers, plus image collections.
You'll find scholarly and popular sources in Academic Search Complete.
You can use the Source Type menu to limit your search results to either type (see video 5 in our ASC playlist for help) or look at the icons next to each search result.
- Scholarly sources will have an Academic Journal icon:
- Popular sources will have either a Periodicals icon (for magazines or trade publications) or a News icon (for newspaper articles):
- You may also see some results with a Review icon. Reviews may come from scholarly or popular publications, but they're not the most helpful research sources (they typically review new books on a topic - librarians use them to buy books for the library). Try not to use sources with the Review icon:
Before you search Academic Search Complete, take a look at our YouTube playlist on using the database. It breaks down most aspects of the database, from how to type in your search terms to limiting searches to scholarly sources to using auto-generated MLA citations.
Other recommended databases:
- eBook Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windoweBook Collection has electronic books. You can use an entire book or just one chapter as a source. Since it is an EBSCO database, you can search it at the same time you search Academic Search Complete (check out video 2 in our ASC playlist for directions)
Need to cite something from eBook Collection? Watch our video to find out how:
- Ebook Central (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windoweBook Central is another great database for finding electronic books or individual book chapters.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR contains mostly scholarly journal articles, so it's a great place to find your scholarly sources.
- Health and Medicine (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
(GALE) Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine contains up-to-date information on the complete range of health care topics. With embargo-free, full-text periodicals, reference books, pamphlets, and hundreds of videos demonstrating medical procedures and live surgeries, Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine ensures that researchers get current, scholarly, comprehensive answers to health-related questions.
