Library
Guides: Media
Reference Books
Online Reference Books
Gale Virtual Reference Library: Full-text articles from Subject Encyclopedias. The articles give excellent background information and are unbiased.
CredoReference
: Full-text articles from encyclopedias.
Searching with Key Words and Boolean
Operators:
When you type words into the search box, the computer will look in the
databases for those words and bring back all the records/entries that contain
the words you requested (not necessarily the topic or
subject matter). In keyword searching, you need to use the most important
words that describe your topic.
Example 1: How does the concept of instant gratification affect consumer spending?
Key words: "instant gratification" consumer*
Example 2: How does stereotyping hurt women in obtaining jobs?
Key words: stereotyp* women (jobs or employ*)
Phrase
Searching
Words that need to be searched together in a
specific order are usually enclosed in quotation marks.
Examples: "video games" "mass media" "false advertising"
Truncation
Truncation lets you find all forms of the
root word. The symbol most often used is an *.
Example: educat* will find educate; education; educating; educated
Boolean Operators
Keyword searching uses Boolean Operators to link the search terms together. The Boolean operator you will use most often is AND.
The Boolean Operator AND
means that the terms connected by it must be in the search results. In
Example 1 the keywords were "instant gratification
and
consumer* so my search
query would be "instant gratification and consumer*
This would ensure that all those
terms would have to be in the record or the computer would not retrieve it.
OR is another Boolean Operator. It is used when you have two words that mean the same thing or are very similar in meaning, and you want to find all the articles regardless of which term is used.
Examples:
"careers" OR "jobs"
teen OR youth
When an OR search is
combined with an AND search the
OR search must be placed in parentheses ( ). This
separates the searches for the computer. This search technique is called
nesting.
Examples: "body image" and advertising and (teen* or youth)
Online
Resources
Academic Electronic Databases http://www.cos.edu/library/electronic.htm
ProQuest: Thousands of full-text articles from journals, magazines, newspapers, Reports, Dissertations, Working Papers
SIRS: Full-text articles from magazines and newspapers
NetLibrary: Full-text books on a wide variety of subjects.
Expanded Academic ASAP: Thousands of full-text articles. This database defaults to the Subject Search. Try the subject headings Mass Media; Consumer culture; Consumerism; Slogans; Materialism; Jingles; Advertising Music; False Advertising; Reality Television Programs; Television News; Tabloid Television Programs; Stereotypes; Sexual Stereotypes; Sex Roles; Minorities in Television; African Americans in Television; Video Games; Online Games; Computer Games; Media Violence; Television Violence; Movie Violence; Piracy (Intellectual Property); Teenage Consumers; Computers and children; MySpace;
NewsBank: Research unique current and archived news content for information on topics, events, issues, people, businesses, and more through this in-depth resource. Easy online access to local, in-state, national and international news sources, including newspapers, broadcast transcripts, newswires, news blogs, news web-only content and video. Local newspapers include: Visalia Times Delta; Tulare Advance-Register; The Bakersfield Californian; Ventura County Star; San Francisco Chronicle; Sacramento Bee; LA Times and others.
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