Reference/Instruction Librarian
Explore a Topic
Read the various points of view about your topic in these databases. Use the texts as a way to begin thinking critically about your issue. You will find ideas that support your position as well as opposing viewpoints. You may even read something that makes you think about something you hadn’t considered.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window CQ Researcher offers in-depth, unbiased coverage of political and social issues, with regular reports on a wide range of topics including: health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, the U.S. economy, crime, and civil liberties. This acclaimed and award-winning weekly publication provides a balanced view of today's most pressing social, political, and economic issues. Each weekly report covers the given topic in a non-sensationalized manner, and many reports feature a pro/con debate, highlighting both sides of the argument. Access over 700 hot topics with pros and cons for your research papers and projects.
- Gale eBooks - Tunxis Campus This link opens in a new window Gale eBooks collection includes a variety of topics and subjects.
- In Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window Opposing Viewpoints offers material to support differing views to help develop critical thinking skills on thousands of current social topics in the forms of primary source documents, statistics, websites and multimedia. Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues, including racism, capital punishment, global warming, and voting rights with reference sources, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journals, court cases, government documents, viewpoints, maps, images, audio, video and websites.
- Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window Featuring a dynamic design and a wealth of features, Issues & Controversies helps researchers understand today's crucial issues by exploring hundreds of hot topics in politics, government, business, society, education, and popular culture. Issues and Controversies provides up-to-date, in-depth and objective information on prominent and hotly debated issues. It combines objective analysis with clear explanations of opposing points of view. Chronologies, illustrations, maps, tables, sidebars, bibliographies and contact information augment the balanced, accurate coverage of current and historical events.
- SIRS Issues Researcher - Tunxis Campus This link opens in a new window SIRS Issues Researcher is an editorially curated pro/con database designed for middle and high school students, university undergraduates, instructors, and librarians. Leading Issues pages provide a framework for understanding and analyzing over 360 complex social issues with overviews, essential questions, viewpoints, and editorially selected primary and secondary sources. All content is 100% full-text and selected from authoritative magazines, newspapers, photographs, books, statistics, infographics, websites, and more.
Books and E-books
Books can provide:
- Background information
- Overview of a big issue
- Detailed analysis of a topic
- References that lead to other sources
And you don't necessarily have to read the entire book! Check the table of contents and the index for the pages pertinent to your paper.
Browse the shelves by entering your keyword in the search box below
- EBSCO eBooks Academic Subscription Collection This link opens in a new window Access a cross-searchable, multidisciplinary library of over 210,000 high-quality, unlimited-user e-books from leading university presses and academic publishers such as Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Elsevier, Harvard University Press, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, State University of New York Press, Taylor & Francis, and University of California Press. These ebooks cover a large section of academic subjects and new titles are added the collection continuously.
Evaluate Websites
Think about the sources you are using in your paper.
If you are not sure about a website, judge it based on the CRAAP test.
Currency - When was the information published or last updated?
Relevance - Does the information answer your research question?
Authority - What are the author’s credentials?
Accuracy - Are there statements you know to be false?
Purpose - Is the author’s purpose to sell, persuade, entertain, or inform?
Magazines, Journals, & Newspapers
Articles are good sources for:
- most recent research or information on a topic
- coverage of a very narrow topic
- coverage of current events
- contemporary accounts of past events and research
Use these CT State: Tunxis databases to find texts that support your argument.
Access the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Guest Passes
- New York Times Online Edition This link opens in a new window Requires creation of free account using campus email address. Use your free account to access popular features, such as Today's Paper, Currently Trending, Wirecutter, The Athletic, Games including The Crossword, Cooking, Recipes, The Learning Network, Opinion, Politics, The Daily (podcast), New York Times Video and TimesMachine, which provides page scans of every issue of The New York Times published between 1851 and 2002 in browsing and searching formats.
- Wall Street Journal Online Edition This link opens in a new window The Wall Street Journal, a national daily newspaper publishing news, information, commentary, and analysis with an emphasis on business and financial news. This online version includes access to Barron's Magazine, MarketWatch and the WSJ puzzles and games. It includes coverage of U.S. and world news, education, politics, technology, real estate, sports, health, and the arts. Requires creation of free account using campus email address.
