These databases are licensed for the exclusive use of enrolled Emmanuel College students, College Faculty, and Staff. Remote access is available for most of the Library's subscription databases with an Online Academic Resources (OAR) username and password.

For all databases, click on the database title to access the login screen and enter your Emmanuel Online Academic Resources account information. If you do not know your OAR username and password, first click on "Find My Username" on the login screen. Then once you know your username, click on "Forgot My Password" on the login screen to reset your password.

If you cannot set or reset your password, please notify the Emmanuel College Helpdesk. The Library cannot set or reset passwords.

See the Library Circulation Policy.

1. Go to the Library of Congress Classification outline at:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html

2. Click on the general subject area of your topic.

3. Then click on any sub-topic or sub-class within the discipline that most closely relates to your research topic.

4. Note the sub-class number and go to the shelves in the library to browse for books in your area of interest.

See the Research by Subject: Writing Resources guide.

Consider the following when choosing resources for your paper:
1. Authorship and Authority (Gibaldi 41-45)
~ Author Credential information:
[Note: In some cases, an organization or corporation may be responsible for a work.]

• Educational degrees such as PhD, MD, etc.
• Affiliations such as schools, research facilities or other organizations; and
• Work experience.

~ Publisher and publication information:

• Scholarly, refereed or peer reviewed journal articles undergo a higher level of screening by experts in the field prior to being published.
• Publishers may be associated with educational institutions such as universities or national professional organizations such as American Psychological Association.

2. Accuracy and Verifiability (Gibaldi 41-45)           
~ Bias or point of view 

• Look at the author affiliations or publication affiliation for potential sources of bias.
• Note the wording of the work including the tone.
• Note how thoroughly the author explores differing opinions.

~ Verifiability    

• Determine if the author has citations backing up any claims within a work.
• If there is a question concerning the information, see if other sources are claiming the same thing.

3. Currency (Gibaldi 41-45)

• The date of publication may affect how accurate it is. Certain types of information such as scientific writing have a shorter shelf-life than others. An older article on current trends in heart surgery would not be a credible source. However, an older English literature essay may or may not be a good source.
• The date of publication may have an affect on point of view or bias. For example, an article on feminism from the 1950s may present a biased account.

Reference:    
Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed.

New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.

Always refer to your research paper guidelines since the use of web sites may not be allowed in your class. Your professor should approve any web sites prior to inclusion in a research paper.
Use the 8 questions ¹ below to determine whether or not to use a web site.

"NO" answers may indicate that the resource should NOT be used.

1. Does your professor allow the use of web sites?



2. Is the web site's intended audience and content appropriate for your research?



3. Is an author or corporate author (e.g. American Psychological Association) identified?

NOTE: URL endings may provide information about the web site owners. Based on Pritchard's Effective Teaching with Internet Technologies, .gov denotes a government web site and .edu is used for educational institution web sites. Although .org is used for non-profit and non-commercial institutions, it is also used for "miscellaneous bodies that do not fit under any of the other top-level domains" (Pritchard, 2007, p. 18).


4. Is the author qualified to present the information?
a. expertise in the subject area?
b. appropriate credentials (e.g. degrees, licenses, certifications)?
c. work related experience?
d. affiliation with reputable organizations?
e. published other works on the subject?


5. Is there potential bias?
   DEFINITION OF BIAS: "prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair" (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2005)
   Does the author present the material in an unbiased manner?
   a. Are the author affiliations or publication affiliations potential sources of bias?
   b. Does the author's tone indicate a bias towards a particular point of view?
   c. Does the author thoroughly explore differing points of view?
   
   Does the sponsor or web site owner present material objectively?
   a. Does the web site exclude advertisements or pop-up ads?
   b. Does the web site owner present multiple points of view?
   c. Does the web site have a clearly stated purpose or scope? (e.g. there is no hidden agenda)



6. Is the web site content accurate or verifiable?

a. Is the web site owner identified and is there contact information?
b. Is the information consistent with other resources such as peer-reviewed articles
c. Does the web site have references and citations allowing you to verify the information?


7. Is the information current?
NOTE: The definition of currency depends on the subject you are studying.
a. Is the date of last revision listed and current?
b. Does the web site list current topics and events (e.g. news and calendar)?
c. Is the web site well maintained (e.g. free of broken links)?


8. Is the web site durable; will it be around in a few months?

To help you find credible resources, including web sites, the Emmanuel College Library has created Research by Subject pages. These subject guides list print, database, and internet resources chosen and evaluated by the library staff.

¹ These questions were based on the evaluating resources sections in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Modern Language Association, 2009, 33-38) and 100% Information Literacy Success (Taylor, Arth, Solomon, & Williamson, 2007, 101-139).

References

McKean, E. (Ed.). (2005). The new Oxford American dictionary (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Modern Language Association. (2009). MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed.). New York: Modern Language Association of America.

Pritchard, A. (2007). Effective teaching with Internet technologies. California: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Taylor, T., Arth, J., Solomon, A. & Williamson, N. (2007). 100% Information Literacy Success. Clifton Park: Thomson Delmar Learning.

SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats] analyses are found within Datamonitor Reports.
Note: Not all Datamonitor Reports include a SWOT analysis.

• From the Library home page, select the Finding Articles link.
• Scroll down and select Business Source Premier from the database list.
• Once in Business Source Premier, select Company Profiles at the top of the page.
• To find a company:
  • Browse the company A to Z list; or
  • Search for the company by entering the company name in the text box, selecting the Match any word option, and clicking Browse.
• If available, a SWOT analysis will be listed in the Datamonitor Report's table of contents.
• To print, click the printer icon located in the upper left corner of the report page. Do not use the browser print function.

If the database that you are searching does not have full text of an article, use the following steps to obtain full text:

1. Search for journal (or source) title in the Full-Text Finder.

Check that the available dates for full text include the date of your article citation.

If the link from "Check Full Text" within a database or from the Full Text Finder does not lead you to full text, note the name of the database containing full text and access it through the "Finding Articles" (A-Z list databases).

2. Search the Online Catalog for the journal title using the Title search option. The results will show if Emmanuel College or any other Fenway Library Online institutions have holdings for the journal in print or online. Check holdings for the date of your article.

3. Place an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Request for the article if full text is not available online or in print. Fill in the form completely including your contact information. An ILL request may take 2-3 weeks to fill depending on the availability of the item.

A peer-reviewed article is reviewed and evaluated by experts in the field who make "recommendations concerning acceptance or rejection, and revision of the article" prior to being selected by the journal editor for publication (Peek & Newby, 1996, 110).*

When searching the Library's subscription databases, read the database descriptions to determine if it contains only peer-reviewed materials (e.g. Science Direct).

If a database contains both peer-reviewed and popular articles, choose the peer-reviewed limit to retrieve only peer-reviewed articles. The peer-reviewed search limit may only be available on the Advanced Search screens.(See an example of limiting to peer reviewed articles in Academic Search Premier)

*Peek, R.P., & Newby, G.B. Eds. (1996). Scholarly publishing: The electronic frontier.
 Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

(See also How do you find articles using the online databases)

See the Alumni Privileges section of the Library Circulation Policy.

See the Overdue items section of the Library Circulation Policy.

See the Library Reserve Policy.

See the Library Interlibrary Loan Policy.

Click here to access PRIME: Premier Resources in Management and Economics: Company Information, a guide to researching various types of company information using print, database, and Internet resources. This guide was prepared and is updated by the Emmanuel College library staff.

Click here to access PRIME: Premier Resources in Management and Economics: Country Information, a guide to researching various types of country information using print, database, and Internet resources. This guide was prepared and is updated by the Emmanuel College library staff.

Click here to access PRIME: Premier Resources in Management and Economics: Industry Information, a guide to researching various types of industry information using print, database, and Internet resources. This guide was prepared and is updated by the Emmanuel College library staff.

See the Library Media Policy.

Click here to search for reserves using the Library's Online Catalog.

Use the Online Catalog to access records of books at Emmanuel College and at the other Fenway Library Online (FLO) libraries.

Types of Searches

1. Keyword Search:
Finds your search term(s) anywhere in the book record, which contains:
Title, Author, Library of Congress Subject Headings, and notes.

Combine more than one word with Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT.

• AND: Both terms must be present.
  For example, (women AND suffrage) finds items that contain both terms.
• OR: Either term is present.
  For example, (women OR female) finds items that contain either word.
• NOT: Omits any items containing the terms. Use NOT at the end of a search string.
  For example, (women NOT suffrage) finds items containing the word
  women but not the word suffrage.
  

Put quotation marks around phrases of more than one word such as "United States".

2. Subject Search:
Allows browsing of materials by topic using assigned controlled vocabulary terms.
The online catalog uses controlled vocabulary based on the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH).
Examples: Architecture; Chemistry, Organic; and United States-History.

3. Author Search:
Search last name first.

4. Title Search:
Omit any leading article (A, An, The).