Communication Literature (Scholarly/Academic)
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA scholarly, multi-disciplinary database providing indexing and abstracts for thousands of journals and other publications. Academic Search Complete includes full-text access to peer-reviewed journals, as well as indexing and abstracts for magazines, monographs, reports, and conference proceedings. The database features some PDF content going back as far as 1867, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
- Communication Source (including Communication Abstracts) This link opens in a new windowAbstracts of articles, books and other resources in communication studies and related disciplines, including communication theory, organizational communication, technology in human communication and public opinion. Coverage is 1977 to present.
- SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new windowA searchable index of full text journals from SAGE. The searchable database consists of bibliographic records (indexed summaries or abstracts) as well as the complete text of each journal article. Every bibliographic record in the Collection links to the appropriate full-text in PDF format. Journals cover topics in area studies, ethnic and gender studies, humanities, health sciences, materials science and the social sciences.
Other places to find Comm-related Literature (Scholarly/Academic)
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowMarketing and Advertising research, business/organizational communication, and more!... Coverage:1886 to present.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowA scholarly database for the literature of psychology, the behavioral sciences and related disciplines. Researchers and students will find that PsyINFO contains citations to many communication-related articles, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations. Coverage: 1806 to present.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowThe major index for sociology, including material on communication. Ditto to PsychINFO
- DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals This link opens in a new windowPrimarily used to identify open access journal titles and forty percent of them are searchable at the article level.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA mix of academic and popular literature on a wide range of disciplines.
- International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new windowIncludes over two million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951.
- PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) Index This link opens in a new windowPAIS Index includes both PAIS International, 1972 to present, with international coverage of materials in government, international relations, legislation, political science, statistics, and related areas and PAIS Archive, the historical segment, comprising a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, Volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowConsists of several databases:
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
Social Sciences Citation Index
Science Citation Index Expanded for journal articles
Conference Proceedings Citation Index
Science and Conference Proceedings
Social Sciences and Humanities
Book Citation Index
Science and Book Citation Index
Social Sciences and Humanities
Current Chemical Reactions
Index Chemicus.
News Aggregators
- UCSB Library Newspaper Collectionsguide to the print and online newspapers available via the UCSB Library
- Access World News This link opens in a new windowanother place to search the popular presses (lets you limit by geographical location!)
- Factiva This link opens in a new windowglobal news and business information from U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, wire services, websites, photographs, and trade and industry publications
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowgood source for popular press material - massive cross-search!
eJournals Lookup
- UCSB Journal Searchquickly search a master list of UCSB Library eJournals to check for online access.
- Have a DOI?Digital Object Identifiers are unique permanent number assigned to articles that have been published online. Not all online articles use them, but if you find one -- UCSB Library has a DOI Search Tool!
Finding empirical research articles
Most databases do not have a way to search by whether or not an article uses empirical research. The only absolute way to determine if an article uses empirical research is to check the METHODS section, however, you can usually find some keywords in the ABSTRACT that will let you know if an article used empirical research.
- To find an empirical article in the database, do a search using keywords on your topic.
- Look for the following words or clues in the abstract of articles that look interesting.
- Quantitative
- Statistical
- Patterns
- Design
- Survey*
- Descriptions of statistical analysis**
- Go to the METHODS and RESULTS section to determine if the authors used empirical research methods an analysis in their research.
*Remember, smaller case studies can also ask their subject to take a survey, then go in-depth with the interview questions - making this qualitative rather than empirical research.
**Look for charts and graphs, percentages reported out, etc.