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 ENC 1102: LIBRARY RESOURCE PAGE
Spring 2008
Librarians: Dr. Darlene Parrish and Kristy Padron

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The selected sources listed below are useful for finding books and articles on various topics.

FINDING A BOOK

FAU LIBRARIES CATALOG

• Searching by Title and Author:
  Go to the "Basic Search" screen and select "Title" or "Author."   

• Subject Searching:
  Go to the "Basic Search" screen and select "Subject Heading."  For example, type in the following Library of Congress subject headings (type in dashes for subheadings):

Authors, American
Authors, American--20th Century
Angelou, Maya--Biography

• Keyword Searching:
  Go to the "Advanced Search" screen and select "Anywhere"  and type in your keywords.   (Example:  Mark Twain and Mississippi River)

FINDING AN ARTICLE

ELECTRONIC DATABASES
Journal articles can be found in electronic databases by doing a subject or keyword search.  A complete listing of electronic databases is available from the FAU Libraries home page by selecting "Indexes/Databases" under the heading "Quick Links."

Remember to select the link entitled "Off Campus Connect" for the EZproxy server, when accessing the databases remotely.

• Academic Search Premier 
  Gives references to articles from journals, magazines and other publications, many with the full text.  Subject and keyword searching can be done to find articles on specific topics.

JSTOR
This is a collection of full text articles from scholarly journals dealing with various topics.  Articles can be located by keyword searching or browsing contents of journals.

• Literature Online (LION)
  This is a searchable electronic collection of over 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose and the full text of 180 literature journals.
   

• Literature Resource Center - LRC, Scribner, Twayne US, Twayne English, and Twayne World Authors
  Provides access to articles on biographical information and literary criticism and interpretation.  Includes authors of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, history and journalism.

• MLA International Bibliography
  This database is useful for finding references to articles on authors, and literary theory and criticism in journals, books, dissertations and other resources.
   

• OmniFile Full Text Mega Edition 
  Provides access to articles on numerous topics including literary criticism in journals and magazines from multiple databases, including Reader's Guide Full Text, Education Full Text and others.

SCHOLARLY VS. POPULAR

Scholarly journals have articles that contain original research or an in-depth analysis of a topic written by researchers, scholars or practitioners who are considered experts in a field.  They may also be referred to as "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" journals.  An example of a scholarly journal would be the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Popular magazines have articles about topics of general interest for a wide audience and are written by writers or journalists who may or may not have expertise in a particular field.  Examples of popular magazines would be Time or Newsweek.

EVALUATING INFORMATION

If you are not using one of the "Electronic Databases" listed above or other databases via the FAU Libraries Electronic Collection, you need to consider some of the following questions when evaluating information from the Internet:

1. How authoritative is the source of information?

2. How accurate is the information?

3. How reliable is the information?

4. How current is the information?

5. How relevant is the information to my topic?

CITING REFERENCES

• BF76.7.P83 2001 Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
  5th ed. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001.
   

• APA Formatting and Style Guide (published by Purdue University) is a useful online resource for writing papers and properly citing references using the APA style.  Especially useful is a section on citing electronic resources.
   

• REF LB2369 .G53 2003  Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  6th ed.  New York:  Modern Language Association, 2003.

FINDING ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE

Ask-A-Librarian email reference help

Reference desk phone number: 561-297-3785

Make an appointment with a librarian: One-on-one reference consultation