LibGuides: COM 404/604: Principles of Persuasion (Bloomfield): Library Guides

Research Starting Polints

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints
Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues.
CQ Researcher
Good for: Controversial topics in social issues, environment, health, education, science, and technology.
Contains: Reports with information about all sides of an issue, including comments from experts in the field, charts and graphs, a pro-con feature, a chronology, a bibliography for additional research, and a list of contacts.
Dates covered: 1923-present.

ProCon.org
ProCon.org Mission Statement: "Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, and primarily pro-con format.”
TED: Ideas worth spreading
TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.

Newspaper Databases & Other News Sources

Nexis Uni
Searchable published news, legal, medical and business information.
The news section delivers the full text of international, national and regional newspapers along with wire services, broadcast transcripts, magazines, and non-English language sources. The legal section contains U.S. Federal and state case law, codes, regulations, legal news, law reviews and international legal information. This includes Shepard's Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789. The medical section supplies information from news and medical journals, and provides abstracts to medical news from Medline. The business section includes business news journals, company financial information, SEC filings and reports, and industry and market news.
Las Vegas Review Journal (NewsBank)
1996-
Full text of articles, not including images.

BBC.ccom
UNLV News Center
Current Newspapers: Local and National Subscriptions
This extensive guide provides current Las Vegas and national newspapers via library subscriptions, in addition to local newspaper websites.

Finding Government Resources, Searching for Statistics, and Think Tanks

There are a lot of great government resources available online. One of the easiest ways to find them on Google is to add site:.gov after your keyword search--such as:

crime statistics site:.gov
climate change site:.gov

USA.gov
Official .gov website to find timely, needed government information and services.
Nevada Electronic Legislative Information System (NELIS)
Information about the Nevada legislative current session as well as past sessions, search for your representatives, and more.

Databases Focusing on Statistics

Statista
Statista provides statistical data from thousands of institutions and sources. It provides access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government agencies.
Statista includes data on more than 85,000 topics from 18,000 sources. About 20 percent of the total data in Statista comes from sources available free online, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Census, but the data also includes numerous exclusive sources which include industry, marketing, and trade groups. Much of the data is related to marketing, demographic, government and industry information, and is international in scope. Data can be downloaded in JPG, PowerPoint and Excel.
Data Planet
Database name changed to Sage Data.

Think Tanks: A think tank or policy institute is a research institute that performs research and advocacy on topics such as social policy, political strategy, military, technology, and culture.

PolicyArchive: PolicyArchive is a comprehensive digital library of public policy research containing over 17,000 documents, from about 500 organizations.
Stateline: Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States. Since 1999, it has reported and analyzed trends in state policy.
Pew Research Center: U.S. Politics & Policy: Includes research reports, surveys, data, and more focusing on US politics & policy.
U.S. State Policy | The Pew Charitable Trusts: Resources on US state policy, fiscal & economic policy, etc.

RAND Reports
Think tank reports and documents on social and political issues.
Searches the RAND archive of over 17,000 titles dating back to 1948. RAND publications deal with such issues as national defense, education and training, health care, criminal and civil justice, labor and population, science and technology, community development, international relations, and regional studies.

Think Tank Search-Harvard
A Google Custom Search of more than 1200 think tanks and research centers.

Research Databases

UNLV Libraries Quick Search

ComAbstracts
Good for: Researching communication studies.
Contains: Abstracts of articles published in communication studies literature.
Dates covered: 1915-present.
Communication & Mass Media Complete
Good for: Finding scholarship in communication and mass media studies, including journalism and popular culture.
Contains: Journal articles.
Dates covered: 1900-current date
Update frequency: weekly
Communication & Mass Media Complete contains journal articles in the fields of communication and mass media studies. It merges CommSearch (formerly produced by the NCA, National Communication Association) and the Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University). Communication & Mass Media Complete provides current issues and backfiles of in the fields of communication and mass media.
Communication and Media Studies
Good for: Researching communication and media studies.
Contains: Full text of 16 communication studies journals.
Dates covered: 1950-current date.
This communication collection includes the full text of journals published by Sage and participating societies. It covers such subjects as journalism, public opinion, political communication, mass communication, interpersonal communication, cultural studies, intercultural communication, television & film studies, media studies, business communication, organizational & management communication, written communication, rhetoric, and literacy studies.
PAIS International
1972-
Index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
From the Public Affairs Information Service, this database provides access to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. It includes records from journals, books, conference proceedings, research and government reports, and directories.
Academic Search Premier
Searchable articles from academic and professional journals and magazines covering every academic discipline.
Update frequency: Updated daily
This excellent one-stop resource lets you search citations and summaries by keyword and then instantly retrieve the full text of articles from journals online. The Get Text button helps you locate any article without linked full text in alternate online sources or in UNLV's print journal collection.
EBSCO Databases
More than 30 databases indexing all subject areas with a heavy focus on business, education, film, health, psychology, sociology, and sports.
Lists more than 30 databases available through the EBSCOhost interface. The databases index all subject areas with solid coverage of business, education, film, health, psychology, sociology, and sports. For each database there is a description of the content and some link to a Title List of indexed journals. The databases contain full text articles and link to more articles. Choose a single database to search or select multiple databases and search them simultaneously
America: History & Life with Full Text
Journal articles and books about the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
Scope: U.S. and Canada only
Languages: Abstracts of articles in 40 different languages
This index includes almost 400,000 bibliographic entries from over 2,000 journals published worldwide. Books, media reviews, and dissertations are also covered, and approximately 16,000 entries are added each year. The Get Text button links to online full text when available and offers access to UNLV print collections and document delivery options for books and articles not available online.
ProQuest One Academic
ProQuest One Academic brings together a variety of databases to provide access to a diverse and multidisciplinary research collection.
The database provides access to ProQuest Central, Academic Video Online, Academic Complete and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Global. Users will have access to journal articles, streaming media, ebooks and dissertations and theses from all major subject areas, including business, health and medical (including nursing), social sciences, arts and humanities, education, science, engineering and religion.
JSTOR
An archive of more than 700 important scholarly journals covering business, ecology, education, ethnic studies, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and sociology with content ending 3-5 years ago
JSTOR digitally archives more than 700 scholarly journals. Subjects include African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, business, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and more.

Google Scholar Tips

A note about Google Scholar . . .

Although Google Scholar contains many resources, it does not contain access to all relevant resources for your research topic. Researchers are strongly encouraged to look at the additional resources mentioned above to conduct a thorough literature review. You do not need to purchase articles via Google Scholar many are available for through the UNLV Libraries or via Interlibrary Loan.

For help connecting to UNLV Libraries' resources through Google Scholar see the following.

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