Info Trac - online newspaper articles and journals

Online newspaper and journal database

This week, we've been going in to some Journalism groups down at MJC to explain Harvard referencing but also to show them how to access the electronic resources which are made available to PRC students by the Learning Resource Centre. When you use these, you know you are using quality resources which when used in your assignments can get you extra marks.

Newspaper articles are great for finding examples to illustrate points in your assignments (or crimes, accidents, new buildings, events etc.). Journals articles are generally short informative pieces often about a more detailed aspect of a topic.

One particular resource which is useful for all students is InfoTrac - a database of newspaper and journals database.
Have you noticed that a lot of newspaper websites are now restricting the number of articles you can view or they cut off the article half way through with an advert encouraging you to subscribe? Have you looked for journal articles and found that the site wants payment?

If you use InfoTrac, you will not have to pay for access, you just need to follow the link from the electronic resources page on Moodle (under the Learning Resource Centre tab) and if asked (outside PRC), choose Shibboleth access, then Peterborough Regional College and input your network login and password.

There are a range of video tutorials to help you. See the video tutorial below for a basic guide to searching for journal articles (our database includes newspaper articles and these can be searched with the journals or separately in the same way).

More tutorials are found here.

If you are a student at UCP, you have access to a number of journal databases similar to this. The ARU digital library gives you access to Academic OneFile which you use in much the same way as the PRC database (and you have access to both).

Keywords and Topic Finder

Searching for information digitally or in books relies on you first thinking of different keywords which the authors may have used related to your topic. InfoTrac has a really useful feature to help you with this called Topic Finder. It  finds other topics related to your search and displays them in tile or wheel format. You can then click on any tile or segment to see results from the database. When we've shown this to students in sessions, they have been impressed. See the video below and then have a go.

If you want any more information or help in using newspapers and journals in your work or searching for information, please do ask in the Learning Resource Centre. We can also do demonstrations or sessions in classes or with groups if requested.