Research Guides: COM-531 Legal and Ethical Issues for Professional Communicators (Ebo, Spring 2016): Locate Information

Locate

Next, find information about your topic.

The links below connect you to articles and newspapers, books, websites, videos, and more

Also look for additional links that pertain directly to your class section.

Depending on what you find, you might need to revise your topic or search strategy.

If you are having trouble finding information on your topic, always feel free to ask a librarian!

When do you need for your research: books, magazine, journals or newspapers? Check out this research guide The Best Source Types.
Differences between journals and magazines - a short video

What is the difference between popular magazines, trade journals and scholarly (also called academic or peer-reviewed) journals? Check out the table below.

Different Types of Periodicals

Popular	Trade	Scholarly
Color covers		Plain cover, plain paper (most often)
Glossy papers	Glossy papers	(Science journals may be glossy)
Ads	Ads	No ads
Articles on current events	Articles on industry trends	Primary research, theories, methodologies
General interest	Written for members of specific industry	Written for researchers & professionals
Short articles	Short articles	Lengthy, in-depth articles
Informal tone	Informal tone	Formal and serious tone
Easy to read vocabularies		Professional jargons, more difficult to read
Written by general staff	Written by staff or experts in the field	Written by experts in the field & researchers
Reviewed by general editor		*Peer review by subject experts**
No bibliographies or footnotes	Short or no bibliographies	Extensive bibliographies & references
Usually called a "magazine"		Referred to as a "journal"; may have "journal" in its name

"Peer reviewed" means that the article has gone through a vetting or review process. That is, experts in the same field as the author of the article have evaluated the author's scholarship and made sure that his or her methods, research, theories, and conclusions are sound and backed up by other scholarship or research. Often, a double-blind peer-review process is used, where the author and reviewers are unknown to each other, to ensure that personal bias does not affect the evaluation of scholarship.

Journals may be scholarly or academic without necessarily being peer-reviewed. In this case, a editor in the discipline or an editorial board makes the decision to publish another expert's work. Ask your professor whether or not your article needs to be peer-reviewed in addition to being scholarly.

When do you need for your research: books, magazine, journals or newspapers? Check out this research guide The Best Source Types.
Watch a short video on differences between scholarly journals vs. popular magazines.
What is the difference between popular magazines, trade journals and scholarly (also called academic or peer-reviewed) journals? Check out the table below.
More on Scholarly vs. Popular.

Databases and Indexes
All the databases of Rider Libraries by subject or by the names of the databases.

Selected databases that contain a variety of journal and/or newspaper articles:

Library One Search
Search for Rider University libraries' books, CDs, DVDs and articles from multiple databases. Capitalize Boolean connectors OR/AND as you connect keywords. See Library One Search Guide.

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Example of a Library One Search

1. Use Advanced search interface

2. Search by keyword and limit search in Subject or Abstract field

3. Use keywords describing one concept in each search box, connect synonyms with connector OR (capitalized)

4. Use * (truncation symbol) to pick up plural form or various endings of a root word.

5. Limit to Full text articles or/and Peer-reviewed articles.

6. Check under Content Provider, and look for articles in subject databases such as Communication & Mass Media Complete, PsychINFO, or Social Sciences Full Text, etc.

Sample topic: Legal and Ethical Implications of Domestic Violence in the NFL

Keywords: (legal OR ethic* OR moral) AND (domestic violence OR family violence) AND (NFL OR national football league) (SU)

Find a perfect article but how do you know if you have access to the full text? This Finding the Full Text of Articles Research Guide can help you.
What if there is no link to the full text of the article? We might have access through another database. Use the Find Journals link to check.
Use the Find Journals link to locate a particular article if you have a citation.