Communication: Home

Help with Keyword Searching
Searching academic library resources can be frustrating and slow -here's a few tips and background info that will help you speed up the process and understand how it all works:

Keywords Help in General
ask me anytime: "what's a good keyword for...?" at dale.larsen@utah.edu

FINDING SOMETHING FUN TO READ (or how to use it in a paper)
Graphic novels have been (once again) hot for a few years now and the public library has tons -but what about an academic library?  And if we do carry titles, why? Doesn't an academic library only work with serious topics?  (note: any and every topic/medium is studied by scholars :-)

Video: How to Find All the Graphic Novels! 

Major collection locations are in 3 spots
(check with a helpful library person if you're unsure!)
First Floor General Collection, PN 67XX
First Floor Browsing Collection, PN 67XX
3rd Floor Juvenile Collection, 74X.X

Image above-left from:
Bloom | Kevin Panetta | Macmillan. (n.d.). Retrieved August 9, 2019, from US Macmillan website: https://us.macmillan.com/bloom/kevinpanetta/9781626726413

NEWSPAPERS and DIGITAL HUMANITIES FOR BEGINNERS
Since we have about a zillion incidences of people saying things over the past 100 years or so in hundreds of newspapers around the country -there's neat research that you can do to analyze rhetoric in different contexts.  This is a very green beginner's guide to newspapers research at an academic library.  It is worth mentioning: newspapers are written so audiences from many different education levels, experiences and contexts can read and understand an issue (ideally) -so avoid high-level jargon like 'rhetoric' and focus on more general keywords (suggestions below).

Image is from: ​ Draper, George. "City hall murders: Moscone, Milk slain --Dan White is held." San Francisco Chronicle, November 28, 1978, 1.

Explanatory Video  

Library Catalog 
If you want to find a specific newspaper title (and search it afterwards) -look in the library catalog -all of the resources below are indexed here, but you'll have to click through a few links to get to the search interface -great resource for finding titles.

Databases
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > ProQuest Newsstand (most of the english language papers in the U.S.)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > Nexis UNI  (most of the english language papers in the U.S.)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > Access World News (World papers (typically english feeds))
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > Newspapers Databases Index

HISTORIC
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > New York Times Historic (complete run of the paper)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > Wall Street Journal Historic  (complete run of the paper)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > Los Angeles Times Archive  (complete run of the paper)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > Shen Bao (complete run of the paper)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > San Francisco Chronicle Archive (complete run of the paper)
Utah Digital Newspapers  (an older collection of regional newspapers -very local)

Open Web
Every newspaper has an open web presence, but their own hosting of archives is spotty -if you want access to a particular paper that you can't find, ask me and I'll help you :-)  -dale

KEYWORDS TO TRY
Rhetoric and discourse are lovely terminology -but the general nature of newspapers might substitute them for (try these):
rationale
reason (reasoning)
belief (beliefs, believed, etc.)
values
meaning (meaningful)
context
explanation
how to do several of these together in a search?: (the following is an example search)
"black lives matter" AND (value* OR context OR rationale OR explanation)

FINDING AND USING LONG-FORM JOURNALISM
In the day-to-day media that we consume, we're often looking just for the facts and a little context.  Say, for example, how is Ducati doing this weekend at Misano doesn't need to be answered with a history of the track, Italian motorcycling culture and the grand prix rider's psychology & early-life story.  That would get annoying really quickly if we were bombarded in every circumstance with too much information.  But if we want to know why people are interested in a topic, we don't always want to read the book on the topic either.  Long-form journalism is a handy and (usually) fun to read middle-ground.  What follows is a starting point on both the 'open web' and in resources the library subscribes to: Image credit: ​Sancho, Fernando. "GP San Marino MotoGP 2017 –Petrucci Domina un FP2 con Caída de Márquez." MundoMotero.com.

Library Resources (see video for a good starting point)
Databases
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > A > Academic Search Premier
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > N > New York Times Historical Newspaper
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > P > ProQuest Newsstand

Library Catalog (USearch) recommended keywords
"long-form journalism"
"magazine writing"
see also the "Best American Magazine Writing" books -(these get checked out a lot so ask for help if you want to recall one -d)

Open Web
Just about everyone is on board with the long-form style these days so you can glean your favorite resources.  Some good starting points are the New York Times, The Atlantic, Longreads.com and Longform.org

NEWS TRANSCRIPTS
When politicians talk about the media these days -the old stalwarts of television, CNN & FOX, to name a couple- are usually an implied target.  But you can't just sit and watch news all day, how can we comb through what's been said on the news?  Transcripts!  Due to the 24 hour news cycle, it is impossible to transcribe and then provide everything, so search with the idea that these are the higher priority news stories from major media outlets (see my demo vid, below).

Image is a screencap from: ​"CNNgo Live Stream." Video file. CNN Go. Posted October 20, 2017. Accessed October 20, 2017. http://go.cnn.com/.

Databases
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > W > Nexis UNI  (good, in general)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > H > Factiva (business point of view, but still generalized somewhat)

ENGAGING WITH BOOKS (both physical and electronic)
First thing to remember is that books are a communication device and can help organize your ideas in a quicker fashion than doing any other type of review.  Finding them and using them can be frustrating, though -so watch my video on tips (the first part of the video is our catalog -and the second part is alternate disovery tools -all listed below)

Image is the cover from: ​Bishop, Edward. Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books. New
     York: W W Norton, 2007.

Explanatory Video (painfully long until you realize it has two parts: The University of Utah Library Catalog (part 1) -then all the other options for discovering/using books and data (part 2).
Quote of the vid: "There are so much stuff going on with books" -I refuse to edit this gem out in hopes someone calls me on it ;-)

Library Catalog 
There's a lot to discover and frame your work -you can see edited works that lay out topics similar to yours, or you might even find the perfect source that says it all.  Don't stop at one, but examine the points of view of several and you'll understand your topic and make faster progress.

Databases
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > W > WorldCat  (all the books!!)
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > H > Hathi Trust (full text historic, please!)

Open Web
Google Books
Google NGrams

​Also, just to help track anything down locally:
Salt Lake City Library
Salt Lake County Library

CITATION MANAGERS
Who loves citation style!?  The more obscure the rules, the better! Am I right!? Ew! Certainly not!  The problem, then, is how to find a citation manager that does the job with few errors -and is quick and efficient.  I'll introduce you to a couple (videos below) that the library subscribes to (free to you), but there are resources to a couple of other open-web managers as well.

Image (cited in NoodleTools) from: ​Larsen, Dale. "Saying woo hoo in the hall on a Friday." Address, The J. Willard Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, UT, November 3, 2017.

Databases
www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > E > EndNote Basic
NOTE: full version of EndNote can be found here: https://software.utah.edu/

www.lib.utah.edu > Research Databases (tab) > N > NoodleTools 

Library Guides -very detailed and informative!
Noodletools
EndNote Basic and Full/Desktop
Zotero 
Mendeley

CORE FEATURES OF ENDNOTE BASIC AND NOODLETOOLS (quick start)...

Very short annotated bibliographies for use by scholars with an emphasis on understanding the contexts of events in the world around us.  No bibliography can be unbiased -ask your librarian how you can continue the research on what you're interested in!

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