English 110
Research guide for English 110: Composition
Prof. Nancy Foasberg
Bibliographer for English
For home use of e-books, databases, e-journals, and course reserves the Proxy Service must be used—see Connect from Home for instructions.
General Search Tips
There is a much more comprehensive tutorial for research in English 110 available on our instruction page. This is just a list of library and other resources you may find useful. Keep in mind that the resources you'll need in English 110 will vary widely based on what you are doing, and don't hesitate to come to the library and ask for help!
Boolean Operators
- AND
- You will only find items that include all the search terms you entered. (i.e., journalism AND bias).
- OR
- You will find items that include one or more of the search terms you entered. (i.e., bias OR propaganda).
- NOT
- The system will return items that contain your first search term, but throw out all those that also include the second. Only use this if you are getting a lot of irrelevant results that all appear very similar to each other.
Other Operators
- Truncation
- You can use a symbol (usually *) to tell the system that you want any word that begins with a certain group of letters (i.e., “femin*” would find documents referencing feminism, feminist, feminists, or femininity). Keep in mind that different databases may use different symbols for this function.
- Parentheses
- You can use parentheses to group terms together, the way you would in a math equation. For instance you could do the following search: femin* AND (Ledbetter OR equal pay). You'd find all articles mentioning feminism and also mentioning either Lily Ledbetter or equal pay.
Some databases (especially LexisNexis) have additional operators of their own. When you are using an unfamiliar database consider taking a minute to skim the help files for tips that may help you search more successfully.
Search Terms
If you aren't finding what you want try adjusting your search terms. Use synonyms, or consider more general or more specific ways of expressing your concept.
Many databases, including Academic Search Premier and CUNY+, use subject terms or indexing terms. This means that all the items on the same topic are grouped together under one word, eliminating the problem of synonyms. These terms are usually listed in the record so watch for them.
Remember, the computer can't read. It understands terms but not sentences or ideas.
Getting Started
- Detailed overviews of current topics
- Includes bibliographies you can mine for further information
- Click on Issue Tracker to browse a list of topics
- Basic information from reference books, magazine and news articles on many social issues, such as abortion, capital punishment, and welfare reform.
- A good place to get started when you need background information or aren't sure what you want to write about.
- Provides pro/con articles outlining the debates around these issues, bibliographies and some newspaper and journal articles as well.
Magazine & Journal Articles
A magazine is a periodical publication generally intended for a popular or general audience. A journal is a periodical publication generally intended for a scholarly audience. Please see this page for more information.
- Includes journals in all fields of study.
- You can limit your results by date, number of pages, or document type.
- Use the Subject Terms link in the top to find appropriate subject headings, or check useful records for appropriate subject headings.
- Automatically suggests related subject terms in the sidebar.
- Includes journals in all fields of study, but is more difficult to search than Academic Search Premier.
- Limit by discipline before searching.
- Use as many search terms as possible and be as specific as you can. Since JSTOR searches the full text of articles it brings up many results, probably more than you want so you need to be specific.
Newspapers
- This database contains two main types of information: legal documents and newspapers.
- If you want newspapers click the News tab.
- Remember to include Boolean operators between your terms, unless you want a specific phrase.
- When you have a list of results you can use the drop-down Show menu to include more information in the list.
- Includes many of the same newspapers as LexisNexis, but uses subject terms and a different interface.
- Allows you to limit by date.
- Automatically suggests related subject terms at the top of the page.
- Familiar and wide-ranging, but the function to limit by date is very limited.
- Plenty of recent news—older news is more difficult to find.
Books & More
CUNY+ at Queens College or at CUNY.
- CUNY+ includes all the books, journals, newspapers, and other materials held in CUNY.
- Searches at the level of books, journals or newspapers—not articles.
- Can search Queens College or all of CUNY.
- Use Request Item to send a circulating item from another CUNY to Queens.
Getting Full Text
- In many databases you can click the orange Find It button to find out whether we have an item. This will take you straight to electronic or direct you to our print holdings.
- If we have an item in print check our holdings to make sure we have the volume and issue you want.
- If we don't have an item you can use interlibrary loan (ILL).
- If it's a book and CUNY holds a circulating copy use Request Title from that record instead.
Connecting from Home
Please see these instructions.
More Help
Librarians
- Research Services
- How to get in touch with librarians.
- Ask a Librarian
- Librarians will answer your questions via e-mail.
- Subject Specialists
- Find a librarian who specializes in the subject that interests you.
Guides
- Search Engines
- Further information on using search engines effectively.
- Citation Style Manuals
- Where to find appropriate citation manuals.
- Tutorial
- Research at Queens College.
