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Communication Studies: Finding Sources

This guide is intended as a starting point for research in U.S. communications at Marshall University. It includes both primary and secondary materials, in both print and electronic formats.

 

Use Summon, our "Library Google" search

  • Treat Summon the same way you would Google: Enter your keywords, and select a result from the list that appears to match your goals. 
    • But you'll probably explore and scrutinize the results from Summon more than you would with Google.
      • Why? Because we usually have a question for Google, whereas we have a research hypothesis/thesis for Summon. 
  • Why is Summon better than Google? Because you can freely access materials using your MU credentials that you'd be asked to pay for in Google.

Search Summon for articles, books, & more

 

Advanced Searching

The Summon Advanced Search on the library homepage is sometimes referred to as the "library Google search" because it will return a very large search results list. This list includes everything that MU Libraries owns that you have access to (either in print or online), as well as things that we don't own but think you should know about. It also allows you to select from many different options to narrow and/or refine your list of search results. 

Search Summon for articles, books, & more

 

Finding Full-Text Resources in Summon

Full-Text Results using Summon

When searching in Summon, you will see many options on the left-side of the results screen for refining your results. For online students and faculty, it is wise to always narrow down your results by clicking on the Full Text Online link below the Refine Your Results heading. 

Library Summon Search

Summon Advanced by MU Libraries

A few more helpful tips...

  • Sometimes, we have search terms that are hard for a database to understand. For example: social media is a term, social is another term, and media is yet another term. But, they all mean very different things. So, when you need to keep a multiple-word search together, you may want to include quotation marks to keep the database from separating your words: "social media" versus social media. 
  • Some databases will provide links to similar sources. Look for something that says Find Similar Results, or You May Also Like to discover additional relevant sources. Often, these options are on the sides of the page, or near the top or bottom. 
  • When you find an article that is exactly what you were hoping to find, check out the References, Bibliography or Endnotes page (at the end), or Footnotes (at the bottom of each page). This information will tell you what that author used in their research, and may point you toward resources you otherwise might never have found.