 As a journalist, you will need to know how to find many different types of information sources, such as government statistics, news articles, and scholarly journal articles. If you are searching for statistics, your best bet is off on a government website. For example, the data and statistics page on the USA.gov site provides links to census data, economic data, justice statistics, and education statistics, among many other types of data. For state data, you can often search state government websites. To find news articles online, one option is to use Google News, which provides articles on the same topic from different sources from across the country and internationally. This is helpful for allowing you to compare how news sources with different political and social perspectives view the same topic or event. If you are looking for scholarly journal articles, a good online option is to use Google Scholar, which limits your search to scholarly articles and book citations. It's important to note that for many of the scholarly articles you find online, you may only be able to view the abstract. You will often not be able to view the full text of the article for free. However, as an NKU student, you will have access to many of these articles through our databases. If you are off campus, you can go to our list of databases, click on the G, and then click the link for Google Scholar. After logging in with your username and password, you will have access to any resources owned by NKU. And for any articles that we do not own, you can always place a request for a free copy using SourceFinder. To make your general Google search more effective, it might be good to use the Advanced Search feature. This will allow you to make your searches much more focused. For example, you can enter specific words that you want to see, search for phrases, and indicate words that you don't want to see. You can also limit your searches to specific domains, such as .gov or .edu, among other options. In addition to searching using a free search engine such as Google or Bing, as an NKU student, you also have access to vast amounts of information, including books, DVDs, and newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles. Many of these resources are available on or off campus, day or night. On Steeley's website, you will see options to search different types of resources. You will also see a list of all the available databases. If you search using the Article tab, you will have access to a variety of different kinds of articles, including newspaper articles, magazine articles, scholarly journal articles, and psychopedia articles, as well as electronic books. You can use the limiters on the left hand side of the screen to limit to a specific type of source and to limit sources by date range. Any sources not available directly through Steeley will have a link to request the item through SourceFinder. If you select the Books tab, you will have access to both print and electronic books owned by Steeley, and you can also search for books in other libraries using the Libraries Worldwide option. To search for DVDs and CDs, you can use the Media tab. You can use the Journals tab if you want to determine whether or not Steeley provides access to a specific academic journal, such as Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. This option is best for when you already know the specific journal that you need. It is not appropriate to use this option when searching for articles on the topic, such as Depression and College Students. When you use the Articles tab, you are searching across numerous databases owned by NKU. However, in some cases, you may want to search in a specific database rather than searching multiple databases at one time. By limiting your search to a single database, your results will be much more focused. A few good databases to get you started are Academic Search Complete, which is a good general database that covers a wide variety of topics. Lexus Nexus Academic, which includes a full text of articles from thousands of newspapers and magazines. For local newspaper articles, you can use the Cincinnati Inquirer database, while you can use Master File Premier to access hundreds of general interest magazines, including Cincinnati Magazine. CQ Researcher is a good resource for overviews on trends and controversial topics, as is Issues and Controversies, which provides pro and con viewpoints on a variety of topics such as gun control, Communication and Mass Media Complete, which focuses on journals and fields such as journalism and mass media. To search for databases, click on the Databases tab, and then search either by name or by subject area. Before you begin searching, it is important to keep in mind that resources such as Academic Search Complete and Lexus Nexus are the names of databases, not of journals. You will find articles from multiple different journals in a database such as Academic Search Complete, but to search for a specific journal, use the Journals tab. If you need assistance finding any particular sources or any types of information, you can always contact at Steely Library or make an appointment for a one-on-one research consultation with a librarian.