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ENG1500: College Writing - Wojnar: Finding Articles Using Library Databases

Locating Articles

Using Library Databases to Find Articles


To locate articles using Library databases, you can click on the tab "Articles & Databases" from the Library homepage. Click on the word GO to view the list of more than 130 databases.

Literature Resource Center is a large full-text database covering over 135,000 authors, with detailed biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information about authors' lives and works. Also includes over 850,000 full-text articles, critical essays, and reviews from more than 390 scholarly journals and literary magazines.

Literary Reference Source is a full-text literary reference database that contains nearly 100,000 articles and essays of literary criticism; more than 140,000 author biographies; over 569,000 book reviews and 4,700 author interviews.

ProQuest Central is a large multidisciplinary database indexing over 14,000 publications, the majority of them available in full text. This product extensively covers over 160 subject areas, including business and economics, health and medicine, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences, and more.

Academic Search Premier includes over 8500 periodicals (newspapers, magazines, and journals) in all subject areas. Most articles are available in full-text online.

Jstor is a large full-text database of more than 1,900 major journals in the humanities, social sciences, business, education, area studies, mathematics and statistics, and much more.

Credo Reference is a database with over 1,300 full-text reference titles from over 120 major publishers. Easy to search and browse, the Credo platform provides access to text, images, maps, statistics, and graphic concept maps to illustrate connections among and between topics.

Points of View Reference Source is a Full-text database designed to present multiple perspectives on a variety of current issues. The database currently offers materials on 200 topics, and each topic section features an overview along with point and counterpoint essays drawn from a variety of sources. Supplementary information includes primary source documents and guides to critical thinking.

Topics to Explore

"I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" by Erika L. Sánchez is rich with themes like cultural expectations, family dynamics, identity, grief, and mental health. 

Sample thesis:

What does the novel suggest about the limitations and opportunities available to immigrant families in America?

A strong thesis question will reflect one or more of these themes. 

  • Cultural Identity and Expectations
  • Family Dynamics and Secrets
  • Mental Health and Self-Discovery
  • Gender and Expectations
  • Intersectionality and Immigrant Experience
  • Socioeconomic Status and Opportunities

Suggested Search Terms

  • U.S. born Mexican Americans
    • “Depression”
    • “Suicide”
    • “Anxiety”
    • “Cultural identity”
  • Mexican Americans
    • “Psychology”
    • “Identity”
    • “Mental Health”
    • “Family Dynamics”
    • “Immigrant Experience”

Keywords: A Quick Guide @ the Cheng Library