In general, you'll find articles that fall into two categories: articles written by scholars for other academics and students (or what we call scholarly sources) and more accessible sources that are written for a general audience. In both cases, you want to make sure you're finding articles written by experts. Typically in academia, we define experts as those who have studied a topic in depth and have earned degrees. We can also talk about expertise in other ways, especially in terms of lived experience. Keep these concepts of expertise in mind as you search.
You can certainly use Google to find news sites, but you'll likely hit paywalls. Instead try searching these databases, which provide access behind newspaper paywalls.
Provides the full text of global, regional and local news sources. Coverage ranges from over 40 Minnesota sources to international sources from over 200 countries.
You may come upon special issues of journals dedicated to topics of interest such as the example linked below. You can request copies of articles from this journal using the yellow "Find It!" button in the database:
Special issue on European BIPOC Feminisms, Meridians: Feminisms, Race, Transnationalism, April 2023, volume 22, issue 1
Some of these databases will contain sources that are both scholarly and also those written for a more general audience. Some databases will also have working papers or reports, data, and maps. Be sure that you know which type of source you're using (this Source Types page will help you decode sources). I also strongly encourage you to read the descriptions for each database and be sure to use ones that provide coverage for your topic.
A good place to start research on most any subject. This multi-disciplinary database indexes nearly 8,050 publications and provides full text for nearly 4,600, including more than 3,900 peer-reviewed journals. Access is provided by eLibraryMN (ELM).
Contains full text documents on international politics and related fields. Includes content from government research organizations, independent think tanks, university analysis centers, and scholarly journals. Also includes country surveys with political data, economic data, and maps from The Economist Intelligence Unit.
This search engine points toward scholarly research rather than all Web-based sources. It is stronger in the sciences than in the humanities, with social sciences somewhere in between. One interesting feature of Google Scholar is that in includes a link to sources that cite a particular item. Not all of the articles in Google Scholar are free; the library can obtain many of them for you through Interlibrary loan.
JSTOR is a digital library of journals, academic eBooks, images, and primary sources. JSTOR provides book and journal content from the date of initial publication up to a "moving wall" of 3 to 5 years before the present year.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0