Evaluating Sources
Who is the author? What do you know about them?
What type of news article is it? Opinion? Science journalism? Editorial?
Which newspaper, journal, or source is it published in? What is the reputation of that newspaper, web site, blog, or journal?
What year was it written? How current is it?
What is the evidence? Does the article cite evidence? Is the evidence research or quotes and tweets? If it quotes individuals, do those individuals have relevant authority to this topic? Is the evidence generalizable (e.g. there is a big difference between quoting a woman speaking to her own and her friends' experiences and quoting the primary investigator of a study that found a similar phenomenon)? Are there tables, charts, equations, and citations?
What is the purpose of the article? Is it informative? Persuasive? Is it alerting or providing detail?
Who is the audience? What assumptions does the author make about her or his audience? What level of detail is included? What kind of terminology is used and is it defined for the reader?
Full Text News Searches
- ProQuest Newsstream This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
A broad collection of newspaper articles published across the U.S.. Covers 1995 - current for most newspapers. An ELM Database. - Access World News This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
A comprehensive current news database, contains hundreds of local, regional, national, and international news sources (including the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune). - Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
Access to the full text of newspapers (foreign and domestic), as well as business, legal, medical, and reference publications. - Factiva This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
Access to the full text of major business publications as well as other newspapers and magazines.
Search for General Science Literature
- ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
A broad, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary search tool. Covers 1973 - current.
After searching for your topic keywords in ProQuest, use the filters on the left to limit to a) Magazines or Newspapers, then to b) Publication Titles of familiar science publications like:
- New Scientist
- Popular Science
- Science News
- Science News for Students
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
Contains scholarly journals, trade publications, and magazines from across the disciplines and from popular culture. Much of the content is available in full text. An ELM Database.
After searching on a topic of interest, use filters on the left to narrow by source type to magazines, or by Publication to a particular title like:
- Scientific American
- New Scientist
- Science News
You may find that there are better quality versions of the article on the magazine's web site - you might want to try both.
Specific Titles
- Astrobites
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Daily research briefs of astrophysical literature written by graduate students in astronomy. - Science MagazineCovers news from all science disciplines.
- Nature.com Advanced SearchNature distinguishes between research articles and news and other less specialized writing. Use the Article Type filter to narrow.
