What is the best source for finding scholarly literature on your research topic?

The University of Michigan Library subscribes to over 800 different databases. Try out your search phrases by browsing in the databases below. If you have questions about which database to use or how to find it, someone is always happy to help you on Ask a Librarian instant messaging.

Combined access to all ProQuest databases, covering many different fields and full text articles. 

Provides indexing for over 8,000 scholarly and general interest journals and newspapers, with full text articles included for over 4,200 of them.

 Access to over 80 databases provided by EBSCO, including PsycINFO, Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, and many more.

PubMed comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Provides full-text access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information, including hundreds of U.S. and foreign newspapers, legal and business publications, wire services, broadcast media transcripts, and trade/news magazines.

Finding Sources - Overview

The main ways to find information sources for your research paper via the library's website is to use the OneSearch (it's like the Google of the library) or our databases. A database is a just a place that gathers together information from many sources so that you can search across that information and retrieve it. The OneSearch is like a database, except it helps you find a lot of different kinds of sources all at once. Explore this website from Baruch College that presents an overview of how OneSearch works. You can search the OneSearch using the keywords and search terms you developed earlier right here in this guide or head over to our library's website and start there.

Following the OneSearch box, you'll find links to some useful databases as well as some additional tutorials to help get you started. Explore the databases using your keywords and search terms.

Once you start looking for sources, if you have any questions or need help, chat with us. A link can be found in the "Get Help!" section of this guide.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Below are databases you can use to search for scholarly and popular artIcles:

For Popular (and some scholarly) articles, start with MasterFile Complete and Readers' Guide Full Text.

For Scholarly articles with a mix of popular articles, start with Academic Search Complete.

Consult the Library Research Guides to find Databases on the subject you are researching: https://libguides.lehman.edu

• Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window

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  From EBSCO, a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database with over 7,000 scholarly publications.

• Readers' Guide Full Text Mega Edition

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  Provides indexing and abstracts for 470 periodicals dating back to 1983. It contains Full-text articles from more than 270 periodicals on topics such as art, business, education and entertainment.

• Opposing Viewpoints

  Provides a complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

• CQ Researcher

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  Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week. The CQ Researcher web site offers online access to issues dating back to October 25, 1991.

• MasterFile Complete This link opens in a new window

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  Information on a broad range of topics including general interest, business, health and multicultural. Includes searchable full text for nearly 1,860 journals, as well as an extensive collection of photos, maps, and flags.

• Google Scholar This link opens in a new window

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  Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines, formats, and sources, including theses, books, abstracts, and articles. Google Scholar sorts articles weighing the fulltext of each article, author, publication in which article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature.

  If you encounter issues off-campus, use the regular https://scholar.google.com link.
  Go to settings, select Library Links, do a search for Lehman, save it. Then perform a new search. You should see results with Full Text at Lehman.
  Go to https://libguides.lehman.edu/google/scholar for more information.

Here are some tutorials for these common databases to help get you started using them:

Academic Search Complete Tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjKNxqiuwpY - Note: The layout and functionality of Academic Search Complete is similar to Readers' Guide Full Text and Masterfile Complete.

Google Scholar Tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXMGQgO_KiQ

JSTOR Tutorial - https://guides.jstor.org/researchbasics

Literature and Humanities Sources

These databases are particularly good for research literature and humanities topics:

• MLA International Bibliography

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  The Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography provides searchable access to bibliographic citations to journal articles, books, dissertations, and scholarly Web sites. It indexes materials from 1926 to the present in academic disciplines such as language, literature, folklore, linguistics, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts. Coverage includes literature from all over the world - Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. The MLA currently indexes more than 66,000 new items each year.

• Humanities Source

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  Authoritative resource in all aspects of the humanities, with worldwide content pertaining to literary, scholarly, and creative thought, providing access to more than 1,450 full-text journals dating back to 1907. Subjects include archaeology,
  area studies, Art, classical studies, communications, dance, film, folklore, gender studies, history, journalism, linguistics, literary and social criticism, literature, music, performing arts, philosophy,
  religion, and theology.

Newspaper Articles

• OneSearch

  Limit results by "Resource Type" in right hand column. Pick "Newspaper Articles."

• Ethnic NewsWatch

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  Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.

• News

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  More than 33.5 million full-text articles from more than 1,100 newspapers, including Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Christian Science Monitor, The Financial Times (London), The New York Times, The Times (London), USA Today and many others.

• New York Times

  Full text access to the New York Times

• New York Times Digital

  Anyone with a valid CUNY email address can sign up for free access to the NYTimes.com website and apps. It also means that you can cancel your personal subscription to NYTimes.com! (But first read the Restrictions section below to make sure you want to cancel.)

  How to Register for Your Free Academic Pass:

  Go to nytimes.com/passes
  Click Register to create a NYTimes.com account using your cuny.edu email address. If you already have a NYTimes account (free or paid) associated with your CUNY email, you need to unlink your CUNY email from that account before signing up for your Academic Pass. Log in to NYTimes.com, click your Username in the top right corner, select My Account, and replace your CUNY address with a non-CUNY one. You can then use your CUNY address to register for your pass.
  At the bottom of the Welcome page, click Continue. You will be prompted to check your email. Watch for the confirmation message, which should arrive within 15 minutes.
  Click the link in the confirmation email. This will simultaneously verify your eligibility and grant your Academic Pass, which will provide access to NYTimes.com for 52 weeks.
  If you don't get the confirmation email, check your spam filter. If you still do not receive it, send an email from your CUNY email account to .
  Ongoing Use: Once you have activated your Academic Pass, you should have full access for 52 weeks (364 days) with no further action on your part. If you see a message that you are reaching the limit of free articles on the site, youre probably not logged in. Simply log back in.
  Renewal: As people who have signed up reach their one-year anniversary, their passes will expire, and they will start seeing the article counter again. Then, after accessing 10 articles, they will be prompted to subscribe or log in. When this happens to you, just go to https://nytimes.com/passes and sign in as an existing subscriber to enjoy another free year of access to the digital New York Times.
  Apps: Your Academic Pass includes access to the NYTimes apps. Once you have registered your Academic Pass, you can access nytimes.com on most web-capable devices.

  Canceling a Personal Subscription: To cancel your personal subscription, call NYTimes customer service at 1-800-NYTIMES or, if you subscribed through iTunes, follow these instructions. There may be other things you have to do, depending on the device you have been using to read the NYTimes. If you had an annual subscription, you will receive a refund for the unused portion of the year. If you had a monthly subscription, you will not receive a refund for the month in which you cancel.

• New York Times: Historical Newspapers

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  The New York Times (1851-2017) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.

• Wall Street Journal

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  Provides fulltext articles from WSJ going back to 1984.

Databases through New York Public Library (with Library Card)

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