Research guide for
47-980 - Communication Skills: Theory & Practice, Mini-4 2009
Prof. Myers

First, some preliminaries:

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries' Home Page

Subject Guides – under “Research Help”

Databases - in all fields, with content unavailable on the open web

Online Catalog: Cameo - look here for e-books, books, journals, theses, etc.

Online journal list – here you can check to see if a journal is contained in one of our databases.

Dictionaries and encyclopedias - for basic information, definitions, overview of field

Remote Access - if you're off campus, you'll need to start here to use any electronic resources

Interlibrary loan - we will get you any article or book that is not in our collection.

Ask a Librarian - many ways to contact the librarians.

MetaLib - the way to search across many databases at once.

Scholarly Research:

Academic OneFile – Cross-disciplinary database of over 12,000 journals for academic research.

JSTOR - historical collections of important academic journals in all fields.

PsycINFO - the premier international database for psychology and related fields, which includes journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports, dissertations.

ERIC – largest digital library of education literature, from the US Dept. of Education.

EconLit - the standard tool used for locating economics literature, and online version of the Journal of Economic Literature; primarily has abstracts, but you can use the “Get It” feature to find the full text of a document.

ProQuest Direct Business and management publications, in addition to newspaper coverage.

IEEE Explore contains the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ proceedings, journals and transactions, which makes up one-third of the world's current literature in electrical engineering and computer science.

INFORMS PubsOnline provides access to ten journal titles published by INFORMS, the professional association for operations research and management science. Articles come from the fields of engineering, management, mathematics and psychology.

Science Direct – starting in 1995, full-text journals in the areas of economics, accounting, computing, engineering, biology, operations research and environmental studies.

Dissertation Abstracts – summaries of dissertations and theses in the English language in all disciplines.

Community of Science (COS) - a global registry that searches for funding opportunities for students, academics and professionals, and for the experts working on a particular subject.

Google Scholar - an increasingly important source for peer-reviewed articles and papers.

 

Data Sources:

Statistical Abstract of the United States (also in print at the Hunt Reference Desk) - U.S. statistics across a broad range of topics. Look at the source listed at the bottom of the table, to find more detailed reports that can be located online, on microfiche or in print in the University Libraries.

ICPSR Data Sets (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research)
An archive of social science data for research and instruction, including historical time series of International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, and many more.

Lexis-Nexis Statistical - a broad range of data produced by federal and state governments, private sources (e.g., trade associations) and international and intergovernmental sources. Citations frequently point to publications that are available on microfiche in the library or online.

World Development Indicators - from the World Bank - datasets for 700+ development indicators, in areas such as finance, communications, the environment, education, labor, health, and economics, for 208 countries and 18 country groups, from 1960 to the present.

International Financial Statistics – from the International Monetary Fund - data for major economic aggregates used in economic analysis as well as current data on exchange rates, international liquidity, international banking, currency, interest rates, prices, production, trade, government accounts, and national accounts.

NBER – datasets and links from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nation's leading nonprofit economic research organization.

Census Bureau – official US Government site for demographics and business statistics.

Bureau of Labor Statistics – data on employment, wages, productivity, occupations, prices, etc.


Citation Research:

Web of Science – perhaps the most thorough source for scholarly literature of the sciences, social sciences and the arts & humanities. Documents include articles, proceedings, editorials, letters, meeting reports and book reviews. A special feature is that the citations in each work can be searched. For instance, you can take a known relevant paper and find all the other papers that cite it, and build a comprehensive literature review.

 

Company/industry research – to prepare for job interviews:

Hoovers Online – basic company and industry background; can make company and competitor lists.

ProQuest Direct – local, national, and international newspapers, journals and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Management and economics literature is well covered in its ABI-INFORM component.

Lexis-Nexis Academic – wide-ranging coverage of business news, company information, legal events, international, national and local business news. The interface allows you to focus on particular company news or industry news.

MarketLine – detailed research reports on thousands of industries, companies, and many countries.

Our guide to doing research for job hunting: The Job Search. 

 

Any time you have a question, don’t forget you can call, email, visit:

The Hunt Library Reference Desk: 412-268-2442; email huntref@andrew.cmu.edu

The Engineering & Science Reference Desk: 412-268-2427; email sciref@andrew.cmu.edu

Or, contact your liaison librarian directly: