Research Starting Points

Beginning your research can be a difficult task if you're unsure of where to look for resources. These Research Starting Points will provide you with various recommendations for finding books, databases, E-journals, and instructional videos.

Use Discover to locate books, videos, government publications, journals, magazines, maps newspapers, numeric databases, music, original manuscripts, and other items collected by Syracuse University Library.

Conduct an advanced search using the Classic Catalog (SUMMIT), and you can also search SUMMIT to find materials that your instructors have placed on Course Reserves.

Curious of where to begin the research process? The Research Process: Getting Started guide will take you through 5 steps of conducting research.

If you need help finding databases, full text articles, or using the Library's catalog, The Productive Researcher Tutorials provide an introduction to those topics and more. They are available in text and video.

Reference sources include dictionaries and encyclopedias. They provide an overview and background information as well as links to further resources. The General Reference Collection guide contains examples of online reference tools such as dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Databases are helpful when you are looking for articles in newspapers, scholarly journals, popular magazines and trade publications.

For specialized databases, including collections of company reports, images, music, and government publications, or more comprehensive coverage in one subject area, visit the Databases Main Menu.

Some good general starting points are shown below, and they are an example of the large number of databases available to you as members of Syracuse University.

The E-Journals Full Text Journal Locator shows you where to find full-text online articles from a particular periodical (e.g., newspaper, magazine, journal). It can be used for two purposes:

• Browse by title of the magazine/journal/newspaper that you are looking for. If the item is not listed, remember to conduct a "journal title" search in Discover, because some titles are not onine but are in the Library's print collection.

• Browse by broad subject area.

You can access the homepage of the E-journal locator by clicking on the image below.

Librarians who specialize in specific subjects and library services have created a number of guides that you can use to get recommendations for books, databases, journals, and online sources. Click on the image below to reach the subject guides homepage.