Library Research

Get background and context for your topic

Use books such as subject encyclopedias to get contextual information for your topic and identify important works. A best starting point is the International Encyclopedia of Communication. Additional resources you can check are:

• Guides to the Literature and Bibliographies
• Dictionaries
• Subject Encyclopedias
• Directories
• Biographical Sources

Use CLUES to search for additional books on your topic. Get help using keyword search and Subject search.

Find journal articles about your topic

You will need to use a database to find references to journal articles on your topic. Some databases also include the full-text of the articles. Some major databases are categorized below:

• Communications
• Film and Television
• Multidisciplinary
• Newspapers

Looking for a known article?

If you already have the name of the journal an article has been published in, the volume, issue and date, then check the the electronic journals list to verify if the library has an electronic subscription to the journal you need. If the journal is not available from the ejournals list, then check CLUES by journal title to see if the library has a print/microform copy of the article.

Related Research Guides

• Cinema
• Journalism

Sources In...

• Sources in Communication Studies (PDF)