ENE RES 200: ERG Grad Student Orientation

Melvyl- the UC-wide catalog

For most research topics, Melvyl is the best catalog to use, because you can request books from other UC campuses directly from the catalog.  You can also use Melvyl to search Worldcat and find materials at libraries beyond UC.  Assume it will take 2-3 weeks to get books from other libraries.

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News databases

The newspaper databases listed here contain articles published mostly after 1985.  For historical topics use Historical Newspapers [Proquest] database

  • LexisNexis Academic
    Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters.
  • ProQuest Newspapers
    Indexes the New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
  • Access World News
    articles from 600 U.S. and over 700 international news sources.
  • Alt-Press Watch
    Alternative, radical, and independent magazines, newspapers, and journals in North America.

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The Research Process

1. State your problem as a question as succinctly as possible. 

2. 'Brain dump': Write down what you already know about your topic, including

  • Names of people, organizations, companies, time period you are interested in, places of interest [countries, regions, cities], conceptual terms...

3. Decide what disciplinary methodologies you plan to use: e.g., sociology, political science, literature, psychology...

4. Fill in the gaps in your knowlege: get background information from specialized encyclopedias or other secondary sources.  Wikipedia can sometimes be good here, or Google News.

5. Select the best places/ databases to find information on your topic from the Library's list of databases by subject. Or use a catalog like Oskicat or Melvyl to search for books and other resources.

6. Use nouns from your brain dump as search terms.  

7. Evaluate what you find.  Change search terms to get closer to what you really want.

8. Refine Your Search Words - Using the information you have gathered, determine if your research words should be narrower or broader. You may need to search basic resources again using your new, focused topics and keywords.  

 

Newspapers

  • LexisNexis Academic
    Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
  • ProQuest Newspapers
    Indexes the New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
  • Access World News
    Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. Offers strong regional coverage, indexing more than California newspapers such as Contra Costa Times (1995-current), Sacramento Bee (1984-current), San Francisco Chronicle (1985-current), and San Jose Mercury News (1985-current). Search categories include: California newspapers (121 titles), Greater Los Angeles (54 titles), major metropolitan titles (13 titles), Spanish-language news sources (48 titles), the World (almost 2000 titles), US (855 titles).
Last Update: January 30, 2012 12:54 | Tagged with: ERG energy resources graduatestudents