Once you have narrowed down your topic and come up with the research question your paper will explore, identify the main concepts in your query. Use these concepts as your search terms (keywords).
Compose your search:
domestic violence and children
How else might you compose your search?
family violence and children
Compose your search:
ex-prisoners and employment and recidivism
ex-convicts and employment and recidivism
formerly incarcerated and employment and recidivism
Perhaps broaden the search to find more about recidivism in general:
recidivism
recidivism and causes
This 3 minute video from the Peabody Library at Vanderbilt University talks about the differences between popular and scholarly articles. It also mentions trade publications.
When you are not physically at John Jay, access the databases by first going to the library homepage, then click on the database links. You will be prompted for your John Jay email user name and password.
Your user name is the letters preceding the @ sign in your email address. For example the email address for John Smith is john.smith@jjay.cuny.edu. Enter john.smith in the user name box. Your password is the one you are currently using to access your email. If you experience problems while logging in, please visit the Password Reset Site or call the DoIT help desk at 212 237 8200.
OneSearch is a good place to find articles on many subjects.
There are many approaches to finding articles; OneSearch is just one of them. You could also choose a specific database. Keep reading below.
Some assignments will ask you to find specific types of articles, e.g. a scholarly article, or newspaper article, or magazine article.
Looking for newspaper articles? Some databases that contain only newspaper articles.
Looking for scholarly articles? Many of the discipline-specific databases include articles only from academic / scholarly publications, such as...