Database Search Tips
Discover@MSU Search Box
Databases Best for Communication
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with nearly 9,100 full-text journals and magazines, of which more than 7,900 are peer-reviewed journals. This database offers indexing and abstracts for journals and magazines, as well as books/monographs, country reports, conference proceedings, etc. This scholarly collection offers unmatched full-text coverage of information in many areas of academic study.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window Communication & Mass Media Complete provides quality research solution in areas related to communication and mass media. It offers cover-to-cover ("core") indexing and abstracts for over 370 journals, and selected ("priority") coverage of over 230 more. Furthermore, this database includes over 3,000 author profiles, providing biographical data and bibliographic information, and covering the most prolific, most cited, and most frequently searched for authors in the database.
Pro/Con Databases
- CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new window CQ Researcher Plus Archive features lengthy reports, including background information, pro/con discussions, tables, statistical data supporting sides of issues, and bibliographies of helpful resources used in preparing the reports. It provides users with original, comprehensive reporting on issues in a balanced, unbiased manner, along with tools to study how these topics have changed over time.
- SIRS Researcher This link opens in a new window A general reference database for high school and college students containing thousands of full-text articles exploring social, scientific, health, historic, business, economic, political and global issues, done according to strict criteria with regard to content and age appropriateness.
- Points of View Reference Center This link opens in a new window Provides pro/con arguments on over 280 topics, with over 1,300 essays, magazines, newspapers, news transcripts, & primary source documents.
Using CQ Researcher Video
Using SIRS Researcher Video
Using Points of View Reference Center Video
Newspaper Databases
- Global Newsstream (formerly Newsstand) This link opens in a new window Provides current access to full-text articles from over 1,300 newspapers, news websites and blogs. Major newspapers include the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other national and regional titles.
- Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window Provides full-text coverage for more than 40 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, and selective coverage for over 330 regional (U.S.) newspapers, plus news transcripts from CNN, FOX News, etc.
- New York Times This link opens in a new window The New York Times provides full-text coverage of all articles from June 1, 1980 to date, including the current day's news.
- Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window Full-text database of news, legal, business, and biographical information.
- USA Today This link opens in a new window USA Today provides full-text coverage of all articles by USA Today staff writers from Feb. 17, 1997 to date, including the current day's news.
- Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window The Wall Street Journal provides full-text coverage of all articles by Wall Street Journal staff writers from 1984 to date, including the current day's news.
Using Nexis Uni Video
Google Scholar
Background Databases
- American National Biography (1 user limit) This link opens in a new window The American National Biography (ANB) contains over 18,000 signed biographies of deceased persons "whose significant actions occurred during his or her residence within what is now the United States or whose life or career directly influenced the course of American history."
- Biography Reference Bank (4 user limit) This link opens in a new window Biography Reference Bank contains more than 236,000 biographical profiles for current celebrities, authors, historical figures, and others. The database includes over 36,000 photo images. The majority of the full-text profiles are over 1,500 words in length with links to abstracts and book review excerpts..
- Dictionary of National Biography (1 user limit) This link opens in a new window The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography contains 55,000 detailed biographical essays and over 10,000 pictures or portraits of people no longer living who have had some significant connection to British history, including individuals from Great Britain as well as individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi, from current or former British territories, or people such as poet T.S. Eliot, who migrated to Great Britain. New material is added three times per year.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Online This link opens in a new window Encyclopaedia Britannica is the world's most comprehensive encyclopedia and reference product. It includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Student Encyclopedia and the Britannica Book of the Year.
- Oxford Reference Online (1 user limit) This link opens in a new window Provides over 225 fully-indexed, cross-searchable subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.
