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Syracuse University Libraries

COM 100 - First Year Seminar (Fall 2017)

Highlights of common research starting points for students in COM 100 (and related needs for research in COM 107..and beyond COM 107)

Welcome COM 100 Students

  • This guide offers sets of databases and other research starting points for COM 100 students (and COM 107 related research)..and beyond COM 107
     
     
  • If in doubt where to begin or having difficulty with a source, contact Public Communications Librarian, Michael Pasqualoni to arrange a consultation. 
     
  • Be Selective:  No one student will require all these sources for any single project or paper.  Make wise selections.  Some projects focusing on highly current news or social media may not require many library databases (though they may help tremendously with effectiveness of sorting and analysis, and recent as well as deeply historical points of view).  Judicious database selection can bring great efficiency to your source exploration because systems like Nexis Uni (formerly known as LexisNexis Academic), ProQuest News & Newspapers, Access World News, Television News Archive, etc. add significant indexing and advanced search features that often then boost the relevancy of your results.

Newspaper and Business Article Sources

Book Locations

Circulating books on journalism, mass media, television, radio, & film reside primarily on Bird Library’s 5th Floor.  Use basic and advanced searches in the SU Libraries SUMMON search engine or, alternatively, classic catalog, to determine specific titles and locations of interest.  Photography books are shelved in the Carnegie Library.

  • Your SU ID Card is your library card
  • The borrowing period for undergrad students is 28 days, and most items can be renewed by clicking on the Library website's "Your Accounts" link.

 

Want to explore some specific large SU Libraries ebook collections directly?  Try ebook databases such as these:

When searching within the SUMMON search environment, to limit results to ebooks, add to your search these two refinements, in combination (refinements can be specified either prior to, or after, entering search teminology):

  • Book/eBook
  • Full Text Online


 

Video-Audio-Images

A concise list of SU Libraries subscription databases in media studies and news that represent (or otherwise contain) significant online video, audio or image content. Kanopy, recently added, in addition to non-fiction and documentary video, also contains numerous U.S. and international feature films from the Criterion Collection:

See also freely available news video searching available via:

  • Internet Archive TV News Search
    (free online access to streaming news video - covering 2009 thru present.  Downloading available via fee based loan on DVD - must be returned to Internet Archive.  SU affiliated students and faculty should also visit the SU Libraries subscription to Vanderbilt University's Television News Archive, where online streaming news video is available for CNN (1995 - present) and NBC (1968 - present).  Other major networks are indexed, but no immediate access to video online - for those - download is via a loan of those clips on DVD-must be returned to Vanderbilt Univ.)

Scholarly Journal Articles (aka: "peer reviewed" research literature from academic periodicals)

Communication Source  - is a primary collection of articles and other references to published literature in all sub-disciplines of public communications, including advertising and public relations.  Covers articles from scholarly peer-reviewed journals, as well as trade journals and other periodicals in additional related fields such as media studies, broadcasting, journalism, linguistics, rhetoric and more.  This database merges together two previously named resources, formerly known as "communication & mass media complete" (ebsco) and "comabstracts" (sage).

JSTOR  - Full-text archive of scholarly publications in mathematics, science, and the social sciences. Moving wall principle means coverage of journal titles here ranges between 1 and 3 to 5 years behind the current date.   Currency varies one journal title to the next.

ProQuest - Enormous repository of articles from newspapers both recent and deeply historical, scholarly journals, popular magazines, business/trade journals, and more.

Scopus  -  The world's largest abstract and citation database, with over 33 million records. Its coverage of Scientific, Technical, Medical and Social Sciences literature includes 15,000 peer-reviewed journals, 1,200 open-access journals, 500 conference proceedings, over 600 trade publications, and 200 book series. Scopus also covers 386 million quality web sources, including 22 million patents.  Its most powerful feature may be its tracking of subsequent citation to earlier articles for the publications it contains.  A great tool for compiling a scholarly "literature review" on any topic.

Two additional multidisciplinary scholarly journal databases that will tend to offer excellent results for all disciplines covered at Newhouse School are:

 

Annotated Bibliographies

If seeking further explanation or examples for the typical formatting common to annotated bibliographies, see these guides:

If struggling with decision-making as to formatting of an annotated bibliography, one that has evaluative elements, do not forget that SU students also have access to the SU Writing Center and its consultants

Information Cycle

The Information Cycle.  How Today's Events are Tomorrow's Information

The Information Cycle [University Libraries - Penn State University]

Focusing on the now ever more distant 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, this brief flash animation outlines how world events translate over time into different formats of reporting and analysis typically done by journalists and scholars.  Consider how the news and information cycle discussed here might apply to more recent school mass shooting tragedies (e.g., Virginia Tech University, Sandy Hook Elementary, etc.)

Current Newspaper Headlines

To browse a recent two to three weeks of articles from a set of major U.S. national and regional newspapers (with ability to quickly jump into specific sections of these papers), connect to Factiva, then click News Pages on the top toolbar.

News titles covered by the Factiva "News Pages" feature include: Wall Street Journal; New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Chicago Tribune; USA Today; Atlanta Journal Constitution; Tampa Bay Times; Barron’s; Forbes

Factiva database news pages search interface

NOTE:  Factiva's license at SU has a five simultaneous user limit, so if turned away when accessing this database - take a brief break and try again shortly.  Even when large groups access Factiva, it is rare for five people to access this BOTH at exactly the same time and also for exactly identical duration of use.  You are welcome to report persistent Factiva database turnaway problems to the Public Communications Librarian at mjpasqua@syr.edu (315) 443-3715

  Watch for the SULinks icon

S U Links

If you see this icon next to the record for an article in one of the databases, click on it to see if the full-text is available online through the SU Libraries

Video Collections at SU Libraries

For more information about video visit SU Libraries -  video and music website.

Retrieving Specific Periodical Titles

To identify whether SU Libraries has a specific newspaper, journal or magazine title in its print or online collection, you can:

  • Enter the journal title into the SU Libraries journal locator (the "journals" link at the Library's website)  AND/OR
  • Enter the journal title into the SU Libraries classic catalog (making sure to employ a 'journal title' search)