Use the tips under the Search Strategy tab to develop a list of keywords to search. Do not type in whole sentences.
If you are off campus, you will need to log-in using your MyWCC username and password.
WCC Library subscribes to a wide range of databases. You must be a current student, staff, or faculty member to use these databases. (See the Work Off-Campus tab above.) You may view a complete listing of the library's databases or click on the links on the left to search databases that are recommended for your assignment.
Remember to apply the Search Strategies outlined under the Search Strategy tab. Do not type in whole sentences.
Enter your keywords in the search boxes. Before running your search, check the FULL TEXT box under Limit your results to get the full articles. When you are looking for Academic Journal articles, you can check the PEER REVIEWED Box. Some databases will give you mostly Peer Reviewed articles and some, like Academic Search Complete will give you a mix of magazine, newspaper and peer reviewed articles.
The icons by the articles will tell you the type of resource they are: Academic Journal articles, Periodical (magazine articles), News (newspaper articles), you will also find book reviews, conference papers and other sources that are not useful for this assignment. Look for the year of the article (you can limit the results on the left. Click on the magnifying class to the right of the title to get a description of the article. That will give you an idea if the article will be useful before taking a closer look.
Many databases can tell you about articles which could be helpful for your research, but they don't have the rights to reproduce.
You can limit your search to only give you results with full-text: look for a full-text box and check it off. You can also limit to full text after you've run your search. This assignment requires Scholarly/Peer Reviewed/ Academic journal articles.
If you find an article that is not available full-text, go to Journal Search (on the main catalog page) to find out if it is available in another database. You will need to sign in with your full MyWCC user id and password (i.e. include the @my.sunywcc.edu) if there is a full-text link. Be sure to note what year your article is from.
You can request any article (or book) that is not found in our library through interlibrary loan. Fill out the ILL form (under "How do I?" on the main library page). Keep in mind that it will take time to borrow the material from another library
Use the database toolbar to print, email and save your articles. Do not use your browser toolbar. Use the EMAIL link to save articles for later. Do not copy and paste the URL from your browser to find articles again, it will time out after your search session closes.
You will need to cite your sources in your paper. Many databases provide citations, but they are not in the correct format. If your citation doesn't note it is MLA, it may not be correct. See the Citing and Plagiarism page in this guide for information on formatting your source citations correctly.
