Research Guides: GESM130: Climate Change: The Science, the History and Our Future: Databases

Search Tips

Once you have identified your Research Question generate a list of words, or Keywords that are related to your topic. For example, if your topic is,"energy AND climate" What aspect are you interested in researching? Renewal energy?

Use AND, OR, NOT to connect your phrases/keywords

AND both energy AND climate

OR either word "global warming" OR "climate change"

NOT will retrieve the first word, debate NOT argument

Keywords and phrases: energy, renewable energy, green house gas, climate change, global warming, polices, treatises

Sample keyword searches for a database:

energy

AND

policy

AND

United States

Databases

Environment Index This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive database to journal articles covering all aspects of environmental policy and politics.
GreenFILE This link opens in a new window
GreenFILE indexes scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports.
This resource offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the environment. Drawing on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology, GreenFILE serves as an informative resource for anyone concerned about the issues facing our planet. The database contains nearly 300,000 records, full text for selected titles and searchable cited references for more than 200 titles as well.
Greensource This link opens in a new window
Produced by McGraw-Hill Construction, this free website (with ads) focuses on environmental and sustainable building news and projects around the world (but with a US emphasis).
Includes fora on topics such as humanitarian design, LEED, and professional practice, as well as entries from the world's top green building and design blogs. It also allows searching in Sweets for green building products.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
It is an excellent starting place for research for a paper, particularly if one isn't sure where to begin their research.
Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new window
The API is a bibliographic database (with links to full-text) of more than 368,000 journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from over 300 international alternative, radical, and left periodicals.
Born of the New Left, it was launched in 1969 to provide access to the emerging theories and practices of radical social change. Coverage, beginning in 1991, is both international and interdisciplinary. The Alternative Press Archive covers 1969-1990.
ProCon.org This link opens in a new window
The website's mission is to promote critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format.
Topics such as Sex and Gender, Religion, and Media and Entertainment have at least one pro/con issue. The "for" and "against" text is in two columns, preceded by a "Did you know" and followed by a background essay. Footnotes are embedded in the text with many live links.

Databases

Sociological Abstracts
Abstracts over 2,000 journals in sociology and related fields from 1963-present.
SAGE Premier
SAGE Premier. Access to more than 500 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine...
PsycINFO
Abstracting and indexing database with more than 3 million records devoted to peer-reviewed literature of journal articles, chapters, books, dissertations and reports in psychology, the behavioral sciences, and mental health.
Project MUSE
Project MUSE provides access to the complete content (including all images) of nearly 500 current scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
As of January 2012, Project Muse has added thousands of University Press ebooks to its collection.

CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new window
CQ Researcher is noted for its in-depth, unbiased coverage of health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy.
Reports are published weekly 44 times a year. Each single-themed, 12,000-word report is researched and written by a seasoned journalist, each providing researchers with an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources. The CQ Researcher Plus Archive adds more than 3,000 reports, published between 1923 and 1990 to CQ Researcher Online.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A growing full text collection of core social science, humanities, and science journals and books.
ProQuest Social Science database This link opens in a new window
This database offers indexing and full text for hundreds of academic journals, providing extensive coverage across a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work and sociology.