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Selected Databases
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowHeinOnline is Hein's premier online product, with more than 70 million pages of legal history available in an online, fully-searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline bridges the gap in legal history by providing comprehensive coverage from the inception of more than 1,600 law and law-related periodicals.
Focuses on law journals, case law, and government documents.
Some United States collections include the Congressional Record, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and parts of the Serial Set. Other notable collections are the US state collections, Canon law materials, international treaties and agreements, English legal materials, and United Nations legal materials.
Databases by Category: Canadian Content, Case Law, Current Content Journals, International Resources, International Treaties and Agreements, U.K. Content, U.S. Federal Content, U.S. State Content
Learn more about this resource at: https://lib.stmarytx.edu/HeinOnline - Homeland Security Digital Library This link opens in a new windowIncludes homeland security strategy, policy and research documents published by federal, state and local government agencies, international governments and institutions, research institutions, universities, and think tanks. To search the full collection from an off-campus location, students and faculty will need individual research accounts, which can be requested directly from HDSL. Be sure to use your St. Mary's University email account.
- Military Database This link opens in a new windowCovers topics across all government and military branches, including international relations, political science, criminology, defense, aeronautics and space flight, communications, civil engineering, and more. Included are scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, government publications, and more.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowProduced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the bibliography directs researchers to more than 3 million citations from journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, scholarly websites, editions, and translations published from the late 19th century to the present.
MLA International Bibliography covers a broad range of humanities subjects, including world languages and literature, linguistics, dramatic arts, film, folklore, rhetoric and writing studies, the teaching of language, and the history of publishing. Its expansive scope also makes it an excellent resource for research in history, philosophy, communications, and cross-disciplinary subjects such as gender studies and area studies.
Content Includes:
3,100,000 records
25,000 indexed journals and book series
2,000 book publishers - Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Includes local, regional, national, and international newspapers, as well as non-English language news; business information about US and international companies; federal, state, and international legal materials including case law, media transcripts, and more.
Nexis Uni features more than 17,000 news, business, and legal sources—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Database Search Tips
- Consider what type of information you need and where you might find it.
- Break your topic into key concepts and identify terms for each concept. Start with fewer words. Less yields more.
- Don't be too narrow in your search, especially initially.
- While it is possible to find sources on international or local topics, the strength of many of our academic databases is coverage of US national topics.
- Use Boolean connectors like AND, OR, and NOT to connect keywords. Many databases search the words as a phrase otherwise.
- In general, avoid using prepositions like "in," "of," and "on."
- Truncation characters such as an * (asterisk) can expand your search by retrieving various forms of a word, e.g., comput* retrieves computer, computers, computing, computation, etc.
- Look at the subject terms or descriptors that are used for articles that appear relevant. Try other searches using those terms.
- In the sciences and social sciences, when starting a journal article search on a topic, consider adding systematic review or meta-analysis, or literature review in your search.
- Consult a librarian or your faculty member for additional related terms.
- Think about which individuals or groups of people or organizations are associated with your topic. These might be additional terms to search.
Evaluate Article Relevance & Quality
- Look at subject terms applied to relevant articles. Did you find additional articles by searching these subject headings?
- Which terms or search strategies yielded the best results?
- Look at the abstract. Are there additional keyword terms you might search?
- How long is the article?
- In which journal or periodical was this article published? What is the journal's or magazine's reputation? How do you know?
- When was the article published? What time period does the research or article cover?
- Who is the author of the article? What are the author's credentials? What qualifies the author as an expert?
- What sources are cited in this article?
- How will this source advance the research project?
- See Evaluate Information for more criteria.