Analytical Reading and Writing

When you're looking for credible information, your "go-to" place are the Library Databases. Databases are paid subscriptions that provide access to millions of newspaper, magazine and scholarly journal articles, as well as other formats including eBooks, audio files and videos.  Temple subscribes to a vast number of databases covering all subjects, which you can access for free!

To find Articles in library databases, you can do a general library catalog search, which will look for your keywords in all library resources (millions of them!).  Another option is to search a database directly.  Sometimes searching a specific database can produce more targeted and relevant search results.  Below are some recommended library databases for students in Analytical Reading and Writing.

Good ones to start with - 

Academic Search Complete: 
Includes both scholarly and popular sources.

Proquest Central:
ProQuest Central includes thousands of full-text scholarly journals, trade and professional titles, newspapers, magazines, dissertations, working papers, case studies, and market reports across all major subject areas.

Opposing Viewpoints:  
Provides information on various social issues, including pro and con articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

CQ Researcher:  

Provides reports written by journalists, footnoted and fact-checked. Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, plus resources for additional research.

Statista:

Provides quantitative data and statistics on a wide variety of subjects, sourced from market research, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases.  Incorporating relevant data and statistics into your papers as evidence is a great way to strengthen your arguments.

* See the complete list of Databases from the library, covering all academic subjects

To find Articles in all of our library databases concurrently, type your keywords into the box below to search within the library catalog.  After the search results load, use the "Resource type" filter on the left-hand side to limit the results to "Journal Articles", "Magazine Articles", "Newspaper Articles", or any other category that fits your needs.

HINT - If your professor has specified that you must use peer-reviewed sources, you can apply the "Availability" filter for "Peer-reviewed only" to further narrow your results.  You can learn more about peer-review below.

Sometimes your instructor will require that you find a scholarly journal article.  What is this and how do you know if you've found one?

Scholarly sources are research articles published in scholarly journals. These articles report on original research conducted by researchers, who are sharing their research with other experts. This is how researchers in academic fields share their findings to one another, and how they build knowledge based on previous research.

How Can I Tell If an Article is Scholarly?

To determine if a journal is considered scholarly, look for whether:

1. It is published or sponsored by a professional society or association
2. Includes a list of reviewers or editorial board members
3. Describes the journal's review process

Research articles published in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed, or refereed. Peer-review is a rigorous process where articles are evaluated by a panel of experts in the field -- essentially the author’s peers. To ensure that the article meets the highest standards for academic research, the peer-reviewers make sure that:

1. the article is accurate
2. the research methods are sound
3. the research contributes new information to the field
4. it is free of bias or conflicts of interest

Search Temple’s databases from Google Scholar, instead of from the library web site, to find freely available scholarly articles available via the Temple University library and the internet.  Just follow these Google Scholar Set-up Instructions, then enter your key words in the Google Scholar search box.

• Look for articles that say Temple U next to them. These are the articles that only you (as a Temple student) can access for free.
• Other sources that say PDF, or similar, on the right side of the article are full text articles that anyone can access for free. 
• Some sources will not show anything on the right of the article. Those are typically not available in full text for free.
  Do not pay to access these! if you really think you need to article, contact the library to see if they can find a free version for you.

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