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

Class Slides- May 9, 2017

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.

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
This database provides comprehansive access to communication topics such as mass media, communication theory, linguistics, organizational communication, etc. Coverage goes back to 1915.

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

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
This multidisciplinary database provides access to over 5,600 active full-text journals and over 6,500 open access journals. Covers topics that range from business, education, social sciences, humanities, engineering, and science. Coverage varies, updates also vary.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to images and the full text of articles in back issues of selected scholarly journals related to the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences.
Consult the online tables of contents for the years available, as coverage varies for each title.
OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary database providing indexing, abstracts, and full text from six of H.W. Wilson's full-text databases: Education Full Text, General Science Full Texts, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Business Full Text. Also available are full-text articles from five periodical databases: Applied Science & Technology, Art, BIological & Agricultural Index, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, and Library Literature & Information Science. Indexing begins 1982, Abstracts 1984, and Full-text coverage 1994. Updated daily.

Communication Source This link opens in a new window
This database provides comprehansive access to communication topics such as mass media, communication theory, linguistics, organizational communication, etc. Coverage goes back to 1915.
Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window
This database provides brief summaries of, and information on where to find, English-language articles in the most important journals in the humanities, published from 1984 to the present.
The full text of many of the articles is available online from 1995, or later, to the present. For indexing of articles in humanities journals prior to 1984, use Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective.

GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text articles on gender and women's studies, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) by authoritative perspectives from 1970 to present.
Access to over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full-text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses.
ProQuest Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text articles and abstracts from scholarly journals from 1871 to present on anthropology, criminology, economics, education, international relations, library science, linguistics, political science, public policy, social work, sociology, and more.
More than 1,800 full-text articles and over 14,000 abstracts from scholarly journals and dissertations in the social sciences
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 Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to more than 3,500 journals, trade publications, magazines, and company profiles. Additional full-text non-journal content includes case studies, market research reports, SWOT analyses, country reports, and more.
Education Source This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text articles and indexing to over 1,000 active open access journals, as well as conference papers, and videos covering all aspects of education. Dates of coverage and Updates vary.

APA PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and two other publishers. Most journals are covered from volume one to the present.
Other publishers: Canadian Psychological Association and Hogrefe Publishing

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