To access any database in this Research Guide from off campus, you will need your myMCC login.
Article Databases mostly contain articles from periodicals, including:
Journal Articles, which cover research and practice in a particular field or discipline. These articles are written by experts in the field and are a high quality source. Limit your search to just journal articles by checking the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals option.
Magazine and Newspaper Articles, which are written more to the general public. They're not as high quality as journal articles and don't go through a rigorous peer review, but may still be appropriate depending on your topic. Use the Source Evaluation Rubric under the Evaluating Sources tab to evaluate these types of articles.
Some databases, especially those geared to a particular topic such as Literary Reference Center, contain periodical articles as well as articles from reference books.
Starting Your Research
If your research assignment requires you to write about a current social or controversial issue, the following database is a good place to start.
For more general information, the following databases offer full-text articles covering a wide range of topics. Make sure to combine your terms with Boolean AND (to include all terms), or Boolean OR (to include any term).
The videos and other resources below will help you be a better database searcher!
Joshua Vossler's video "Selecting and Using Keywords"
Keywords and Database Searching
An organized collection of computer records having a standard format designed for efficient retrieval of information.
Advantages of Online Databases:
If your research assignment requires you to write about literary criticism or literary themes, the following databases are a good place to start.
LitFinder is international in scope, covers all time periods, and contains literature content, including poems, short stories, novels, essays, speeches, plays, biographies, summaries, photographs, and more. Full-text is available in many cases. LitFinder provides access to a wealth of literary works and secondary-source materials covering world literature and authors throughout history, including full-text poems and poetry citations, short stories, inaugural presidential speeches, and plays. LitFinder also contains biographies, work summaries, photographs, and a glossary. Researchers can quickly search for a particular author or identify authors linked by qualities such as gender, nationality, century, and genre using person search. Works search functions similarly, giving users the ability to browse works by thousands of subjects, themes, genres, and literary movements.
Depending on your topic, you may want to use databases beyond what is on this page and/or research guides other than the English guide. The following list can get your started.