Good Starting Points
Below are some starting points for general research. Please note that depending on your topic a subject-specific database may be a better place to start.
Library Databases (For Finding Articles) 
- Academic Search
- 1984-present; indexes over 3,400 scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers in the areas of business, social sciences, humanities, general academic, general science, education, and multi-cultural studies. Full-text is available for 2,000 journals starting with January 1985. Guide
- CQ Researcher
- 1991-present; Reports from Congressional Quarterly providing analysis on issues in the news.
- Dissertations & Theses [formerly Dissertation Abstracts]
- 1861-present; citations and abstracts for every doctoral dissertation completed in the U.S. at accredited institutions. Includes some master's theses and foreign language dissertations. A preview of the first 24 pages of most dissertations is available. A customized interface to search only UWM dissertations is also available (including the full-text of UWM dissertations from 1997 to present), as are complete lists of all UWM theses and dissertations. Guide
- Google Scholar
- Dates vary; records and citations from Google's Web index calculated to be scholarly. Although useful for most topics, it still contains a small subset of available publications; other databases on this page will have additional items on your topic.
Note: You never have to pay to retrieve results. The full text of some results are linked, but for others the Citation Linker must be used to track them down. Firefox users can install our Google Scholar Find It! Extension for help with this step.- IngentaConnect [Formerly Carl Uncover]
- Current; free abstracting service covering over 29,000 scholarly journals in many academic fields including engineering, library science, medicine, science, and technology. Full-text of selected journal articles is available to signed in UWM users. Individual users can order articles for a fee. Free e-mail alert service is also available. Guide
- JSTOR
- Back to 1800; does not include recent years; full text, searchable backfiles of over 600 core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences.
- LexisNexis Academic [Formerly Academic Universe]
- Dates vary; full-text of over 4,000 current events/news publications, legal and government information, and business news and corporate information. Guide
- OmniFile Full Text Mega
- Dates vary; A multi-disciplinary database providing the complete content-indexing, abstracts, and full text-from five of Wilson's full-text databases: General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, Wilson Business Full Text.
- Project Muse
- Recent years; selected journals go back to 1993. Project Muse provides access to the full-text of over 220 scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.
- ProQuest Newspapers
- 1986-present; Full text of over 550 U.S. and international news sources. Includes coverage of over 150 major U.S. and international newspapers such as The New York Times and the Times of London. Guide
- Web of Knowledge - Tutorial
- 1987-present; includes three databases within the Web of Science platform: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. It indexes more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals, providing complete bibliographic data and author abstracts. Also includes ISIHighlyCited.com, which lists the most influential scientific authors, and EndNote Web, an online bibliographic citation manager. Guide
- Wikipedia
- Current; a community-built encyclopedia with over 2,000,000 articles. Note that because articles can be "vandalized," information on Wikipedia is not always accurate. As with other encyclopedias, however, it is sometimes a good starting point in the research process.
Research Guides
See also the Multidisciplinary Topics page for more listings and the Online Reference directory for Web resources.
For more help using and locating library materials, Ask a Librarian.