Harold & Wilma Good Library: CORE 192: War, Peace, and Nonresistance: Finding a Case Study Topic

Step One: Finding the Basics

The beginning stages of the research process are easily handled with reference works - encyclopedias, news articles, individual chapters in a book, statistics, and other introductory material. Here are some good places to get started:

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive reporting on issues in the news; pro-con essays from experts
CREDO Reference This link opens in a new window
Professionally developed subject encyclopedia collection. Similar to Wikipedia yet with articles written by known subject experts.
Credo Reference is a multidisciplinary collection of subject encyclopedias and dictionaries. Developed with beginning researchers in mind, it includes resources to help develop search terms, as well as bibliographies that directly link to the library catalog. A strength is the robust quality of the articles written, while a weakness is that it is missing obscure topics. Subscription.
NewsBank This link opens in a new window
Find diverse international perspectives on topics related to controversial issues, the environment, health, literature, business, economics, criminal justice and more from a variety of current and retrospective news media including newspapers, image editions, web-editions, trade journals, newswires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, periodicals, video content. Includes 144 Indiana news sources, along with approximately 12,000 other sources from around the world.
New York Times This link opens in a new window
American newspaper covering all current events. Free individual digital subscriptions for members of the GC community, for details visit https://libraryguides.goshen.edu/nytimes.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Find statistics, consumer survey results and industry studies from over 22500 sources on over 60000 topics on the internet's leading statistics database.
Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window
Includes complete HTML coverage of The Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition, from 1984 to present. Free digital subscription available here: https://libraryguides.goshen.edu/newspapers/wsj
Also includes access to Wall Street Journal (Online) from 2010 to present and WSJ: the Magazine from the Wall Street Journal from June 2011 to April 2013.

Step Two: Finding the Details

This stage is where you will want to find well-researched, detailed sources - academic articles, books, and perhaps primary sources. Here's where you can look for those:

Search the Catalog:

ACLS Humanities E-Book Collection This link opens in a new window
ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is an online collection of nearly 4,700 books of high quality in the humanities, accessible through institutional and individual subscription. These titles are offered by the ACLS in collaboration with thirty-one learned societies, over 100 contributing publishers, and the Michigan Publishing division at the University of Michigan Library. The result is an online, fully searchable collection of high-quality books in the Humanities, recommended and reviewed by scholars. These are works of major importance that remain vital to both scholars and advanced students, and are frequently cited in the literature.
eBook Collection - EBSCO This link opens in a new window
Ebooks that cover many disciplines and are usually more recent.
EBSCO eBooks provides ebooks from a variety of publishers. Older academic titles and newer popular press titles (e.g. cookbooks, juvenile texts). Platform is fairly easy to use and books can be read entirely online. Print and download options are clearly listed. Subscription.
EBSCO This link opens in a new window
35 EBSCO databases in a wide range of disciplines
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full-text of core academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
JSTOR is a collection of scholarly journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. It's entire collection contains around 2,000 journals, although local access will vary. These are subscriptions, and chosen individually, so each collection will reflect the focus of the institution. The collection's strength lies in its complete back issues of journal titles, while a weakness is a "moving wall" limiting access to the most recent journal issues. Subscription.
Oxford Scholarship Online This link opens in a new window
Large collection of ebooks published by Oxford University Press.
Oxford Scholarship Online is a current collection of ebooks and journals purchased from Oxford University Press. Subscription.

Step Three: Finding the Steams

When the time comes to work on your chosen streams (the lenses through which you will examine your case study), it pays to find sources that take a specific approach. This may mean a book, an anthology, a journal on a certain topic, or even primary sources that represent a certain viewpoint. Many of these can be found in the sites listed under step two, but here are a few more places to look:

ATLA Religion Database
Best place to start for religion and theology research. Includes full-text journals and citation-only journals and books.
Atla Religion Database combines indexed journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion with over 360 major religion and theology journals. Browse by Scripture, Publication or Index including the Atla Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, Talmud, Book of Mormon, and Quran index. Also includes book reviews and essays. Subscription.
Oxford Handbooks Online Criminology and Criminal Justice This link opens in a new window
A collection of 17 books and articles about Criminal Justice written by top scholars in the field. The link will take you to a search with all 800+ chapters. You can select Book in the Format section on the left if you wish to see specific book titles.
Plowshares Digital Archive for Peace Studies This link opens in a new window
Peace studies primary documents, including minutes, diaries, correspondence, pamphlets, newspapers, and periodicals ranging in date from 1700s to present
Religion and Philosophy Collection This link opens in a new window
Full text academic journals in religion and theology.
Religion and Philosophy Collection is a resource of scholarly journals in religion and theology. The collection includes around 200 full text titles Good for initial academic research in religion, although limited in scope compared to other sources for religious studies.

CORE 192: War, Peace, and Nonresistance: Finding a Case Study Topic

What topic can maintain your interest?

Step One: Finding the Basics

Step Two: Finding the Details

Step Three: Finding the Steams