Online Databases: Use an online database to locate articles about a topic. All of the library databases can be accessed from the Electronic Database List. If you are searching from off-campus you will be asked for a User ID and password; use your Pirate ID and password for access. To search for an article about a particular subject within communications, consider using the following databases.
Primary databases for communication articles:
Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC): This database originated with the acquisition and subsequent merging of two popular databases in the fields of communication and mass media studies -- CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University). EBSCO has combined the extensive coverage of these two resources, and has expanded upon them (both in terms of content and scope) to create CMMC . The database offers full text for over 200 titles and contains citation coverage for additional sources.
Communication Abstracts: Indexes and abstracts communication-related articles, reports and books. Coverage includes general, mass, interpersonal, small group and organizational communication, as well as theory, advertising and marketing, broadcasting, journalism, public relations, radio, public opinion, speech, and television. Coverage includes not only communication literature but also literature in other disciplines that is relevant to communication researchers.
Secondary databases for articles related to communication topics:
PsycINFO: Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, social work, law, criminology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, and organizational behavior. The coverage is worldwide, and includes references and abstracts to nearly 2,000 journals in more than 20 languages, and to dissertations, technical reports, book chapters and books in the English language. Produced by the American Psychological Association.
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection: This database contains nearly 470 full text titles covering topics such as emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods.
Sociological Collection: This database contains nearly 570 full text titles covering all areas of sociology, including social behavior, human tendencies, interaction, relationships, community development, culture and social structure.
Multidisciplinary databases containing popular and scholarly sources:
Academic Search Premier: Provides information on a wide range of academic areas including business, computer science, engineering, social sciences, humanities, linguistics, science, education and multicultural topics. It features full text for more than 4,500 journals, and indexes about 8,000 journals including nearly 7,000 peer-reviewed. In addition to indexing and abstracts, searchable references are provided for more than 1,000 journals in the collection.
Proquest Research Library: ProQuest Research Library contains over 2,600 periodicals in a wide range of subject areas. The database consists of two components: the core list, containing 800 periodicals, and 15 subject-specific modules.
Online Tutorial: "Search for an Article about a Topic|(text)
Finding Specific Articles:
Citation Linker – Use this tool to locate a specific article. Provide as much publication information as possible including: article title, journal title, author’s name, volume, date and page numbers.
E-Journal Portal - Use this tool to determine if a journal is available online. Search for the journal title only.
If It's Not Full-Text:Find It!
Many of our databases include the full text of articles. In some cases, though, the full text of an article may not be available online in the database you are using due to publishers' restrictions or the prohibitive cost of providing them online. Increasingly, when you search for articles in the library's databases you will see the button on your results list or on the screen showing the citation/abstract of the article.
Serial Solutions is a service offered by Joyner and Laupus Libraries that allows you, at the click of a button, to go from an article citation in one database to a full text copy of that article in another, or to see if a particular article or specific journal is available in full text electronic format. It also allows you to find out if that journal is available in print at either Joyner or Laupus.
To Find Books:
Books can be mailed to you free of charge, search Joyner Library’s online catalog at our homepage at www.ecu.edu/lib. In the “catalog search” box in the middle of the page, you may search by keyword, title, author, or subject.
Try General Keyword searches like these: Note: the asterisk * finds different endings to the root word, quotation marks " " allow phrase searching, and parentheses (or) provides a way to search for terms with the same meaning.
instant messaging and communicat* (blogs or weblogs) and communicat* cell* and phones and communicat* podcast* and communicat* technology and "interpersonal communication" "social networking"
Also, try a Subject Alphabetical search, a useful Library of Congress Subject Heading for this class would be:
Interpersonal communication -- technological innovations -- social aspects
NetLibrary: Search the Netlibrary database for electronic books. NetLibrary is a web-based system for accessing and retrieving more than 50,000 fulltext reference, scholarly, and professional books in electronic format (eBooks). Text-based books can be read online, and audiobooks can be "checked out" and downloaded for listening. ECU students, staff and faculty, use this link to create an account.
