ENG 101 Research and Composition - EDGE: Articles

These General Use databases will provide articles on nearly any topic. When you click on the link you may be prompted to login with your MyJCC username/password.

We also offer many other databases that focus on specific topics and academic subjects.  Consult our Articles - JCC Databases page for a complete listing of databases listed by academic discipline or subject area.  Let me know if you need assistance selecting a subject database.

Once you have completed your background research on your topic you will have likely narrowed down your topic to one a more specific aspect of the issue that you want to concentrate on.

It will be very helpful for you to access articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals to locate resources that go into more depth on your topic. You do this by searching our databases.  We offer about 80 databases that provide literally millions of articles from tens of thousands of publications.

Begin your search in one or more of the General Use databases listed in "Selected General Use Databases" box.  We also offer many other databases that focus on specific topics and academic subjects. 

Keyword Tips:

• If searching for sources that are focused on specific aspects of a topic, include a keyword for each concept.  For example, let's assume you require information on the increase in number of hydraulic fracturing laws by local governments in New York State.
  
  Your keywords might include:  New York State hydraulic fracturing laws
  
  Be careful not to include too many keywords - in most cases all of the words you enter in the search box must appear in the articles for them to be returned in your search results.
  
  On the other hand, if you receive too many results and they are not focused on what you are looking for, add keywords to narrow the search.

• Use synonyms as appropriate.  For the above example you might substitute "fracking" for "hydraulic fracturing" or "legislation" for "laws".

Search Tips:

• If searching for a phrase or name, you can include the words in quotations marks to do a phrase search:  "hydraulic fracturing" will return articles with those two words together, in that order.

• You can often search for multiple versions of the same word using truncation. Add the appropriate symbol to the initial letters in the word to return results with each variation:  legislat*  would return articles with the words legislation, legislator, legislating, legislate, etc.

• You can use boolean operators to help structure your search, creating fairly complex queries.
  
  AND searches for both terms, for example:  Fracking AND laws   (Note that most of our interfaces employ "AND" by default, so you do not need to enter it.)
  
  
  OR can be helpful if you have two words or phrases that are used to refer to the concept you are searching for, for example:  "hydraulic fracturing" OR fracking   (Note that these tricks can be combined, here the boolean OR has been used in conjunction with a phrase search.)
  
  
  NOT should be used sparingly, as it eliminates all articles containing the word anywhere in the text.

Need help with something? Ask Us for Help!

If you are on-campus you are encouraged to stop by the Library and ask for help, we welcome the opportunity to work with you.

If you are off-campus and we are open your best option is to call the Reference Desk at 315-786-2482 and ask for one of us. You can also contact us via email or if you need immediate assistance and we are not open, you can chat with a librarian online (likely not a JCC librarian, but helpful nonetheless) as outlined on our "Ask for Help" web page.

We look forward to working with you!

John Thomas (jthomas@sunyjefferson.edu / 315-786-2314)

Beverly Scarpulla (bscarpulla@sunyjefferson.edu / 315-786-2224)