Guides: Communication Arts: Databases

Library Databases

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Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate is our largest multidisciplinary database of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos.
Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Supports quality research in areas related to communication and mass media. This includes both CommSearch and Mass Media Articles Index, along with journals in communication, mass media, and closely-related fields of study. Contains indexing and abstracting for more than 570 journals and full text access to over 450 journals.
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Information and opinions on current social issues, from capital punishment to immigration to marijuana, and includes topic overviews, journal and news articles, primary source documents, statistics, infographics, multimedia, and vetted websites. Browse by topic, including the National Debate Topic, food waste, mental health, pollution, and racial profiling.
Formerly called Opposing Viewpoints in Context
OneFile: Communications and Mass Media This link opens in a new window
Search over 400 Gale Academic OneFile journals for information focused on the communications field – advertising, public relations, linguistics and literature.
Formerly called Communications and Mass Media Collection
OneFile: Fine Arts This link opens in a new window
Search a subset of Gale Academic OneFile journals covering the fine arts such as drama, music, art history and filmmaking. Exclusive features, including Topic Finder, InterLink, and a mobile-optimized interface, support and enhance the search experience.
Formerly called Fine Arts and Music Collection

You can use the Library Databases list from any computer on or off campus to see a complete listing of electronic resources by name, subject, type, or provider. Databases covering Communication Arts are listed below.

Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning.
Chicago Manual of Style This link opens in a new window
The online version of The Chicago Manual of Style, published by the University of Chicago Press, a guide that covers grammar, usage, and citation rules.
Gale in Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
Includes over 600,000 biographical entries covering international figures from all time periods and areas of study. Alongside its biographies is related content from periodicals, images, videos, audio selections.
Formerly called Biography in Context
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A collection of core scholarly journals, many going back to the first volume. Emphasis is on back issue coverage. JSTOR also has an extensive collection of primary sources.
MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Combines the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film with full text for more than 1,000 journals, including many of the leading publications in these fields. Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA) and international in scope, the bibliography covers scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present, including journal articles, books, series, translations, websites, and dissertations. The database also includes MLA Directory of Periodicals and the MLA Thesaurus.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Provides over 2 million digitized entries from Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias. Find facts, figures, definitions, quotations, translations, and illustrations covering 25 subject areas such as history, linguistics, medicine and health, music, and religion.
Sage Journals Online This link opens in a new window
A searchable collection of scholarly online journals published by Sage, covering humanities, natural science, education, fine arts, music, and social science

Tips for Searching Library Databases

Identify Keywords

The building block of a library database search is keywords. Keywords are central ideas or terms within your research question or problem.

Boolean Search Operators

Once you have your keywords identified (2-3 is a good place to begin), you then need to connect them together in a way the database understands how to search. This is done using the Boolean search operators AND, OR, and NOT. Connecting keywords using these search operators creates a search string.

AND - narrow search, used to combine terms together and focus search results (college and artificial intelligence)
OR - broad search, used to includes results that contain similar or like words, such as synonyms (ChatGPT or artificial intelligence)
NOT - narrow search by exclusion, used to exclude results containing a particular keyword (gaming not gambling)

Enter Keywords in Database Search

Enter your keywords, connected with the appropriate Boolean operator.
Use the filters to narrow your results. Peer reviewed and full text are automatically selected, but you may want to narrow the results to those published in the last 10 years.

Using Search Results

Sort your search results by Date Newest so the most current information on a subject is at the top of your results.
Use the "Cited by" or "Cited References" features contained in many library databases to view a list of resources that have cited the particular article currently being viewed in their own work or are contained within the Reference list of the current article being viewed.

Do not limit your search to just one database. Instead look at a variety of databases both subject specific and interdisciplinary to make sure you are viewing the full scope of literature published on your topic.

Communication Arts: Databases

Access to Online Resources at Jenks

Go to the Jenks Library website at gordon.edu/library

Find the online resource you need from the Library Databases page.

If prompted by the Gordon log in screen, log in to your Gordon email.