WR 222: Everything's an Argument (English Composition)

This page was created to support your work in WR 222.  It includes both tools and resources that will help you in your exploration of public discourse, and in your own writing.

On the web -

Try Newsmap - a visual browsing "skin" on top of Google News data.

 

Muckety - "exploring the paths of power and influence"

 

Subscription-based soures -

 

From the "databases" link on the library's webpage , you can use several powerful databases to search thousands of magazines and newspapers at once.

Here are a few we recommend:

Lexis-Nexis Academic

Lexis-Nexis is an extremely powerful tool that searches local, national, international and specialized news sources (both print and broadcast).  All of the articles are available online, and this database is updated daily.

How to use Lexis-Nexis to find an editorial or opinion piece on your topic.  

Newspaper Source

Searches 25 national and international newspapers, 260 regional papers as well as broadcast news sources.  Many of the articles are available online, and this database is updated daily.

How to use EBSCO databases to find an editorial or letter to the editor on your topic. 

The Wall Street Journal

If you've tried to get content from the WSJ website, you may have been asked to pay for it.  The Library maintains an electronic subscription to the WSJ here - with full-text access going back to 1986. 

Publications

Columbia Journalism Review

American Journalism Review

(Audio) On the Media (National Public Radio) 

Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) Understanding News in the Information Age

Fact-checking sites

FactCheck.org

PolitiFact.com - Truth-o-Meter

 

Watchdog sites

Some of these are non-partisan, and others have a clear point of view.  Sometimes that POV is easy to see in the site's masthead ("we watch Fox News so you don't have to").  Other times, it's more subtle.

Look at the "about us" pages for more information.

Accuracy in Media 
Center for Media and Public Affairs

MediaChannel.org

News Hounds

 

Browsing

This is a short list of just a few of the social news media sites available.  Most of these include blogs, comments, pointers to news articles and analysis.  In other words, they provide a combination of opinion writing and more traditional journalism:

Note:  the comment threads on these posts are user-generated.  The quality of the comments range from inane to insightful.  Language, etc. is usually not moderated.

Talking Points Memo

RedState

Huffington Post

Pajamas Media

 

The following two sites aggregate scholarly blogs, commenting on academic research, peer-reviewed research, and other topics.  They can be searched, to find posts on a topic, or browsed by subject area:

ScienceBlogs

Research Blogging

 

Searching

Here is a search engine that will let you search the dynamic web.  Use advanced features like:

• searching by link (to see pages that respond to a particular post or article)
• trend information (to track the conversation on your topic over time)

Technorati

Check Technorati's "Authority" feature to see how influential a particular blog or post has been.

Twitter

News Sources on Twitter

10 Twitter feeds for mainstream news

Newsmakers on Twitter

Centers for Disease Control emergency feed

U.S. State Department

Department of Education

NASA

United Nations Secretary General

Searching twitter

Twitter search: http://search.twitter.com

Monitter: search for real-time, trending topics

Twitter visualizations 

Trendsmap - "Real time local twitter trends."  Use this to see trending topics, mapped around the world.

 

15 Ways to Track Twitter Trends (Mashable)

• Academic Search Premier
  Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,600 scholarly publications, including full text for more than 3,500 peer-reviewed journals.
  Full-text and abstract/index: 1975-present
  
  Concurrent Users: unlimited
  Coverage Dates: 1975 - present
• JSTOR
  An archival collection of journal articles that includes over 140 titles in the humanities, social sciences and sciences.
  Coverage Dates: Varies by Journal
• Project Muse
  Project MUSE is an interdisciplinary collection of high quality, peer reviewed journals.
  Coverage Dates: Varies by journal
• Google Scholar
  Uses the Google search engine to search for scholarly materials from around the world such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports.
  Coverage Dates: Unknown

Click a topic to browse a list of websites recommended by your instructor and the course librarian.  This list is updated frequently.