Research & Teaching Services Librarian
Finding a Topic
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Points of View Reference Center This link opens in a new windowContains overview of more than 500 topics. The overview provides background information, both pro and con arguments, as well as a guide to critical analysis for each topic. You can either browse or search topics.
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ProCon.orgProvides a list of a wide variety of topics along with an introduction to them. Topics include things such as bans on fur clothing, free college, sanctuary cities, zoos, milk drinking, and binge watching
Finding Background Information
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Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowA great way to find background information is using a reference resource such as an encyclopedia or handbook article. These sources often include in-depth articles with bibliographies.
Finding Peer Reviewed and Scholarly Articles About Your Issue
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Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowGood for most research topics. You can limit your search to peer reviewed articles but contains some magazine and newspaper articles. Use the Access buttons on the results list or in an article record to find the text of the article. You might consider supplementing your research with an appropriate database listed in the Discipline Specific Database area below.
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Congressional Research Service Reports (Library of Congress) This link opens in a new windowLibrary of Congress' collection of Congressional Research Service reports authored by the Congressional Research Service, which is the non-partisan research arm of the Library of Congress.
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Congressional Research Service Reports (University of North Texas) This link opens in a new windowA more complete collection of Congressional Research Service reports by the University of North Texas.
Discipline Specific Database
News and Magazine Articles Including Editorials
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Access World News This link opens in a new windowNews from around the world including editorials and opinion pieces. You can limit to a country and state. To limit to editorials put Editorial OR Opinion in a separate search and select Section from the dropdown box.
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Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowLots of major newspapers and magazines. You can use editorials to find different points of view. To limit to editorials click on the News link above the search box. Next click on the Advanced Search link below the search button. Scroll down to the Section field and enter the word editorial. Scroll back up and enter your search terms in the Terms area and click on the Add button and search.
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New York Times All Access This link opens in a new windowAlthough this is also a great source for news and editorials, it is only searching one source. FYI Because the Ball University Library subscribes to this database you can enjoy your own subcription to the database.
Note: All users must activate their New York Times account the first time they login. Follow the onscreen instructions or see this video demonstrating the account activation process. If you have difficulty cancelling your personal account contact edu@nytimes.com.
Finding Books
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OneSearch This link opens in a new windowGood for both books and articles. This is where you would go to find books in our library's collections. You will want to capitalize Boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR, NOT) and put quotes around phrases. It has a Peer Review limit and facets on the results list to narrow by content type (e.g. books, video recordings, etc.).