Research Guides: ENGL 1H/2H: Critical Thinking & Writing Honors (Serviss): Audience

Class Slides- May 9, 2017

Demographic Information

A good starting point for researching your audience is gathering some demographic data. The following sources can help you with this.

American FactFinder/American Community Survey
American FactFinder provides access to data from the American Community Survey & the US Census. Search by state, county, city, town, or zip code for community facts. Comprehensive coverage of community demographics, housing, occupation, households, and more.
kidsdata.org
A program of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, promotes the health and well being of children in California by providing an easy to use resource that offers high-quality, wide-ranging, local data to those who work on behalf of children.

Information Habits

To find article about a specific topic, try searching in a subject-specific database.

To find information about the information habits (media preferences, preferred sources, etc.) try searching Google or Communication Source.

Google This link opens in a new window
Try searching Google using terms the include your target population and media or social media habits. For example, to find information about the social media habits of teens, try: social media teens
Communication Source This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive resource for scholars studying mass media, communication theory, linguistics, organizational communication, rhetoric & discourse, phonetics, and speech pathology. It includes the full text of more than 600 publications (academic journals, conference papers, magazines, and periodicals). Coverage goes back to 1915.

Issue-Specific Information

To find information about a specific issue related to your topic, try searching in a subject-specific database.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary database providing access to more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. It also offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals. Covers a wide range of academic topics including business, education, social sciences, humanities, science, & engineering. Coverage varies, with some publications going back to 1911.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics, biology, and other fields of the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title. Updated monthly.
OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
This multi-disciplinary database provides the complete content - indexing, abstracts, and full text - from six of Wilson's full-text databases: Education Full Text, General Science Full Text, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Business Full Text. Full-text articles from five additional periodical databases are also included when available: Applied Science & Technology Full Text, Art Full Text, Biological & Agricultural Index, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, and Library Literature & Information Science Full Text. Indexing begins in 1982, abstracts in 1984, and full-text coverage in 1994. Updated daily.

Arts & Humanities Databases

Communication Source This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive resource for scholars studying mass media, communication theory, linguistics, organizational communication, rhetoric & discourse, phonetics, and speech pathology. It includes the full text of more than 600 publications (academic journals, conference papers, magazines, and periodicals). Coverage goes back to 1915.
Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts English-language articles in the most important journals in the humanities, from 1984-present. The full text of many of these articles is available online from 1995 forward. Updated daily. For indexing of articles appearing prior to 1984, use Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective.

Social Sciences Databases

GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
GenderWatch enhances gender and women's studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research by providing authoritative perspectives from 1970 to present. GenderWatch provides access to over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full-text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses.
Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 1,800 full-text articles and over 14,000 abstracts from scholarly journals and dissertations in the social sciences such as criminal justice, education, language behavior, linguistics, political science, sociology, etc.
Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts articles at least one column in length from over 544 different English language periodicals in the social sciences, which includes anthropology, psychology, sociology, ethnic studies, political science, economics, geography, urban studies, and more. Fulltext of articles are available from about 175 of these periodicals. Indexing goes back to 1983. Abstracts began with January 1994. Fulltext availability varies title to title, but may go back to 1995. Updated daily. For indexing of articles appearing prior to 1983, use Humanities & Social Sciences Retrospective.

Business & Education Databases

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
1,700 full-text, peer-reviewed journals. 1,600 business trade and general business publications. Additional full-text non-journal content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses, faculty seminars (video) and more
Education Source This link opens in a new window
This database will lead you to articles from more than 3,000 professional and scholarly education journals and magazines as well as some books and conference papers. The vast majority of sources are in English, but other countries and languages are represented. Dates of coverage vary wildly, but you could find something from as far back as 1929.

Psychology Databases

APA PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 100 important journals in all subject areas relevant to psychology. Journals published by the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, and English language journals from Hogrefe Publishing are included. Most titles are covered from volume one to the present. Citations in PsycINFO have links to the full-text in PsycARTICLES.

Browsing By Subject

To browse all SCU databases by subject, visit the Databases By Subject page.

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ENGL 1H/2H: Critical Thinking & Writing Honors (Serviss): Audience