LibGuides: Communication (COMM) 359 [Sweet]: Conduct a Literature Search

Databases for Communication Studies

Communication Studies
Multidisciplinary

Library Databases: Use these resources to search for your topic in multiple journals at once.

PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Index (with links to full-text) with scholarly articles related to psychological topics.
Weekly updates
Nearly 4 million bibliographic records
Indexing of more than 2,500 journals, 99% of which are peer-reviewed
Coverage dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, with extensive coverage from the 1800s to the present
Authored and edited books and book chapters
Dissertations selected from Dissertation Abstracts International (Sections A and B)
Publications from more than 50 countries
Journals published in 29 languages
PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
Full-text journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and allied organizations that cover general psychology as well as specialized basic, applied, clinical, and theoretical research in psychology.
Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains peer-reviewed journal articles as well as magazines and trade publications in the areas of communications, media, and related disciplines.
CommSearch offered bibliographic and keyword references to 26 journals in communication studies, with coverage extending to the inaugural issue of each -- some from as far back as the early decades of the 20th century. It also included cover-to-cover indices of NCAs six journals (from their first editions to the present), and abstracts from their earliest appearance in NCA journals. Mass Media Articles Index provided citation coverage of over 40,000 articles related to mass media and published in over 60 research journals, as well as major journalism reviews, recent encyclopedias, and handbooks in the area of communications studies. In addition, Communication & Mass Media Complete offers full text for over 200 titles and contains citation coverage for additional sources.
Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print Internacional This link opens in a new window
Designed for novices and professionals alike, this database contains full-text reviews for test products in psychology, education, business and leadership. In addition, it provides a bibliography of English and Spanish-language tests.
* Full-text reviews of more than 3,000 contemporary testing instruments
*All previous editions of the yearbook dating back to 1938, providing more than 10,000 full-text reviews
*Tests In Print (TIP), a bibliographic database to all known commercially available English-language tests currently in print
*Pruebas Publicadas en Español (PPE), a bibliographical database that provides descriptions of more than 570 Spanish-language tests

Library Databases: Use these resources to search for your topic in multiple journals at once.

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for scholarly and peer-reviewed journals within various disciplines.
Access funded by the State of Idaho through LiLI - Libraries Linking Idaho.
Coverage: 1975-present for some periodicals
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Includes academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR is very useful if you are interested in historic content.
Sage Journals This link opens in a new window
Search within over 670 journals in the social sciences, humanities, science, and technology.

Google Scholar
Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. To get the full-text of articles, click the three parallel horizontal lines, then click 'Settings' and 'Library Links,' search for 'University of Idaho', and click 'Save.'

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Access the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Science Citation Index 1900-present
Social Sciences Citation Index 1900-present
Arts & Humanities Citation Index 2004-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index 1994-present
Book Citation Index 2005-present
Emerging Sources Citation Index 2015-present

Conduct a Literature Search

Library databases and Google Scholar are two of the best resources to use when conducting literature searches.

To find literature about a topic, we first need to identify the topic's key concepts.

Sample Topic: How does social media usage impact young adults' personal well-being and relationships with others?

Key concept 1: Social media
Key concept 2: Young adults
Key concept 3: Personal well-being
Key concept 4: Relationships

The next step is to brainstorm related keywords or synonyms that also reflect the topic's key concepts.

Sample topic: How does social media usage impact young adults' personal well-being and relationships with others?

Key concepts	Related keywords
Social media	Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, online social networks
Young adults	College students
Personal well-being	Depression, anxiety, stress, happiness, isolation, loneliness, mental health
Relationships	Friendships, social network, romantic relationships, family relationships, connectedness, social support, social belonging

The final step is to select a library database and search for the topic using a few different search tricks.

Type your search terms into the search box in a Library database or Google Scholar to find articles related to the topic.

Search trick	Example	Description
"Quotation marks"	"young adults"	Each result will contain the exact phrase included in the quotes
AND Google Scholar: A space = AND	facebook AND relationships Google Scholar: facebook relationships	Each result will contain all keywords
OR + parentheses ()	("social media" OR "online social networks")	Each result will contain at least one of the keywords connected by OR and included in the parentheses
Asterisk (*)	happ* = happy, happiness, happier, etc.	Each result will include variations of the root of the keyword

Combine AND, quotation marks, OR and parentheses, and asterisks * to create a more complex searches.

Example: facebook AND relationships AND happ* AND ("young adults" OR "college students")

Research Guides

Communication (COMM) 359 [Sweet]: Conduct a Literature Search

Databases for Communication Studies

Conduct a Literature Search