These databases contain scholarly & professional articles on Communication Studies topics.
These databases have a variety of sources in them, on a multitude of topics. They're not a bad place to start, but you will have to be careful to make sure you are looking at scholarly articles.
Popular articles
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Scholarly Articles
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Are written for a general audience- not specialists
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Are written for professionals or specialists in a field
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Are written by journalists
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Are written by specialists or professionals in a field
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Are stories typically assigned to writers by an editor
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Are written by scholars who are sharing their research with fellow scholars. These articles go through a process of peer-review
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Are written in language aimed at non specialists- "anyone" can understand
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May be written using highly specialized or technical language- the "jargon" of a field
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Can be short, to the point, summaries of a story or idea
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Are more lengthy, explore a topic in depth
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Magazines are often filled with pictures, advertising for general products
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Journals rarely have pictures (though there may be graphs of data) and only have professional ads, if any
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Never have a bibliography or list of references
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Always have a bibliography or list of references
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You are being asked to locate and use articles that are "empirical research". Empirical research uses data derived from actual observation or experimentation.
To determine if an article is an empirical research article, use these guidelines:
Here are some resources that explain what empirical research is.