Research Guides: WGS 112: Finding Sources

Using Keywords and Boolean Searching

Research Question: How does playing video games affect teenage girls?

	Concept 1	AND	Concept 2	AND	Concept 3
Extract the major concepts from your research question.	teenage		girls		“video games”
List alternatives for each concept: These can be synonyms, or they can be specific examples of the concept Use single words or short phrases. Find additional terms in abstracts and summaries of articles.	Search Terms		Search Terms		Search Terms
	adolescent		female		“online games”
	OR		OR		OR
	teens		“teenage girls”		Nintendo
	OR		OR		OR

	OR		OR		OR

Places to Look for Sources

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals.
In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
This is the largest single periodical resource available, bringing together complete databases across all major subject areas, including Business, Health and Medical, Social Sciences, Education, Science and Technology, and Humanities
Gender Studies Database This link opens in a new window
Womens Studies International, produced by NISC, covers the core disciplines in Womens Studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research. Coverage includes more than 871,000 records and spans from 1972 and earlier to present. This database supports curriculum development in the areas of sociology, history, political science & economy, public policy, international relations, arts & humanities, business and education. Over 2,000 periodical sources are represented.
LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
LGBT Life with Full Text contains all of the content available in LGBT Life as well as full text for more than 120 of the most important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, as well as more than 150 full-text monographs and books. The database includes comprehensive indexing and abstract coverage as well as a specialized LGBT Thesaurus containing over 6,400 terms.
ProQuest Social Science Journals This link opens in a new window
This database includes over 535 titles, with more than 310 available in full text. Disciplines represented range from anthropology, sociology, political science to communication, education, criminology, demography, economics and more.

Roosevelt Library subject-related database Think about to which subject(s) your topic best relates.

Google Scholar Search

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
This link to Google Scholar connects you to the full-text of articles provided through RU Library journal subscriptions.
Look for... "Full-Text @ My Library"
Google Scholar provides a broad search that includes selected research papers, professional society and interest group publications, conference reports, book summaries, and media reports. Results include abstracts and citations, drafts, works in progress, reprints, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Not everything in Google Scholar is free.

Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the Web. A drawback is that not all articles are free.

Getting Data

Census.gov This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Data.census.gov is the new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. The vision for data dissemination through data.census.gov is to improve the customer experience by making data available from one centralized place so that data users spend less time searching for data content and more time using it.

U.S. Census Quick Facts
Interactive site allowing quick searches for census data. Can be limited geographically, by age, race, sex, income, and more.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention This link opens in a new window
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CDC’s Office of Science serves as the agency’s authority on scientific quality, integrity, and innovation. Our office works agency-wide to advance strategic science – the cornerstone of CDC’s mandate to protect the public’s health. OS staff members collaborate across the agency to provide the scientific expertise, services, and systems that ensure CDC delivers information the world trusts.
Pew Research Center This link opens in a new window
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Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.
US Government Documents This link opens in a new window
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GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch. GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.