COM 440 / POLS 461: Mass Media Law - Fall 2015 (Cook): Analysis, Background, & Context

Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference sources provide background information and can be used to identify key people, events and dates which can then be used as search terms for finding additional information. In addition most encyclopedia articles include short bibliographies that will lead you to related readings.

These collections include encyclopedias covering many different subjects.  Search them to find an encyclopedia or other reference book related to your topic.

Law Reviews are the scholarly journals for the law profession.  They can be useful for locating background information and analysis of a court case or legal topic.  Law review articles can be found by subject, case name, or popular name of a law.  These articles contain many footnotes with helpful references to related sources.  

Academic articles, those published in scholarly journals, are the bedrock of most academic disciplines. They provide an indepth analysis of narrow topics. Prior to publishing, articles are vetted through a process called peer-review. Most academic articles include footnotes which can lead you to additional sources on a topic.

Databases work by matching your search terms with the items in the database, in this case information about articles.  Generally when searching a library type database, link your search terms with the word AND. 

For example, to find articles related to journalists' protection of news sources, I might search for articles about this general topic or articles focusing on the case of Judith Miller.  I should also consider other related terms including synonyms. So I might do searches on:

• journalists AND sources
• journalists AND "anonymous sources"
• journalis* AND "shield law"
• "judith miller" AND sources
• joutnalist* AND confidential* AND source*
• "journalistic privilege"

Searching is a bit of an art so be creative and use a variety of search terms and strategies in order to find the best articles on your topic.

Remember the Information (Publication) Cycle - it takes time for subjects to appear in scholarly articles and books.  Depending on the newness of your topic, you may not find scholarly sources on your exact topic. 

The UW Libraries subscribes to many databases because they do not include the same publications.  The publishers decide which databases may include the full text of their articles.  If a database does not provide the full text of the article that you need, select the button that you see:   

or

These buttons will search to see if the Libraries has the article online in a different database and, if we don't, see if the magazine or newspaper is available in paper form.