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Medina- Fall 2025- : Databases & Articles

Movie Assignment

Databases, Articles, Journals, Oh My!

Databases are like digital filing cabinets for storing and organizing information.  Check out the library's databases so you can access academic journals (think of a specialized magazine for scholars and researchers) and high quality academic articles. These are the types of sources your college instructors (and maybe future employers!) will expect you to use.  

Search Everything at the Library!

 

👉 Type your topic here — try something like climate change, mental health, or 3D printing!

Citations from Database

 

Most of our databases include tools that automatically generate citations for every article, video, eBook that you open.  The citation tools may look different depending on which database you use.  Look for the icons below in your resources to quickly access a citation that you can copy and past into your assignment.  Don't forget to check these auto-generated citations for occasional errors (use the ACC Library Style Guides!)

Most databases offer tools that will generate a citation for your article.  Screenshot shows different icons for citation tools in different databases.

 

Not sure where to start?

Here are some ACC Library databases that may be helpful to your ENGL 2311 assignment.  Remember, you may be prompted to log in with your ACC eID after clicking on the links. To see the complete list of ACC Library Databases , click here

Reference Article Databases - A good place to start when you are getting familiar with your topic.  Encyclopedias are excellent for giving you foundational information.

Sources for Industry Trends Reports
Bureau of Labor Statistics - Trusted data on jobs, wages, and trends.

Occupational Handbook Explore careers: duties, salaries, outlook, and more.

Statista
Statista consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources in business and government.

Gale eBooks
Online collection of general and subject-specific encyclopedias on all major topic areas.

Magazines, Newspaper, Journal Article Databases- These databases contain periodicals which publish information in a series, or periodically (hence the name).  Daily newspapers, monthly magazines and journals are all periodicals and the articles inside them are periodical articles.  Check out the following databases to start researching your specific topic. 

Academic Search Complete
Scholarly articles, news, and research on topics in most subject areas.

Academic OneFile (Gale)
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources, including thousands of podcasts as well as videos.

JSTOR
Contains more than a thousand academic journals and over one million images, letters and other primary sources.

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints
Articles with pro and con viewpoints from reference works, magazines, academic journals, newspapers, primary source documents, and government and organizational statistics.  

The New York Times
All ACC faculty, students and staff have full access to The New York Times website.  You must first register using your ACC email at Access NYTimes.  More information can be found at The New York Times: Academic Pass Guide

The Washington Post
Articles from 1987 to present

The Wall Street Journal 
All ACC faculty, students and staff have unlimited access to WSJ.com, WSJ apps, podcasts, curated newsletters and more.  You must first register using your ACC email at WSJ.com/AustinCC.  More information can be found at The Wall Street Journal: Membership Program

Finding Articles Tutorial

Try out searching in some of the library databases with the Finding Articles Tutorial.

The Layered Web

To think about the Layered Web, consider the image of the ocean from surface level to sea floor.  Surface level objects (boats and fish) represent  search engines like Google and Bing and other easily retried websites like wikipedia, Amazon, Blogs, News).  Below the fish are the whales which represent databases and academic journals.  Below that is a giant squid and submarine representing the Tor network or the dark web which includes political dissidents, illegal porn, drugs, stolen credit card information, etc.)

Databases

Some databases you may already use: Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Gmail.  Elements of ACC Library databases: Scholarly sources, 144 databases, organized alphabetically or by subject, build in tools.

What are Databases and Why You Need Them


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