LibGuides: Articles: General Topics

Best Databases for General Subjects

Academic OneFile (Gale)
Academic OneFile is a source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from journals and reference sources. Provides coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects. Articles are available in both PDF and HTML full-text. Includes full-text coverage of the New York Times back to 1995.
Indexing 1980-present; Fulltext for most titles, 1994-present. Indexing 1980-present; Fulltext for most titles, 1994-present.
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier is an interdisciplinary database, covering a broad range of subjects. It contains indexing for 8,172 publications, with full text for nearly 4,700 of those titles.
CQ Researcher
Good place to begin research on current topics. Covers the most current and controversial issues of the day with complete summaries, insight into all sides of the issues, bibliographies and more. Updated weekly.
Readers’ Guide Full Text
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature indexes 240 magazines--the ones most often found in school, public, and college library collections, as well as the New York Times (late New York edition).

Improve Your Search Strategy

Want to make your searching even better AND faster? Check out these short videos below. Total runtimes are indicated by parentheses.

Boolean Operators
How to use Boolean Operators to improve your search. (2:20)
Nesting
It's not just for the birds! How to use nesting to group keywords to keep your results relevant. (0:41)
Truncat*
Tired of trying to think of all the many ways to say the same word? Truncate it! (0:33)
Wildcards
Learn how to use wildcards for better searching, especially in international literature. (0:26)
Field Searching
Use the different fields to refine and narrow your search results. (1:05)
Subject Headings
Use subject headings to find related items quickly and easily. (1:24)

Find the FUll Text

Look for the purple "FUllText?" button next to an article record in the databases. If Furman has access to that article, even if it's not in that specific database, this button will connect you with the full-text of that article.

Popular VS. Scholarly

This very good video from CSUCB's Pfau Library will help explain the difference between scholarly and popular articles and how to tell which you are looking at.