Writing Across the Social Sciences

Utilizing KVCC Library Services

In addition to visiting the Lunder Library itself you can access much of it's resources online by visiting the Lunder Library website.You can access the library by clicking the link at the top of the KVCC website

On the right side of the page you will see a menu like this:

Click on "Library"

You will then enter the library web site. Icons appear on the main screen that look this the ones below. Click on the "Find" icon to enter the online databases and other resources.

You will then be prompted to enter your log in information for the MyKV Portal...where access to the online research databases is housed.

Enter your KVCC log in information here

You will then be brought to a page with direct links to the various online resources available at the KVCC Library!

You will see a screen with numerous links...click the EBSCO link. (If you are off campus you may need to enter the access name and passwork that is also provided for this database.)

Choose your database

Again, choose your databases from the choices in EBSCO...or just select ALL

Once you are into the "Search" interface, there are a number of ways to "Limit" or "Focus" your search.

Below you can see a full screen picture of the interface itself...each part of the interface.

To limit and focus your search you can use any number of these tools:

You can enter terms, names, topics into the search categories...

Use the pull down menu to select where you want EBSCO to search for these terms...

Further limit your search by utilizing these tools:

• Limit to "Full Text" and this will give you articles that you can download in PDF format (recommended)
• Limit to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Articles (recommended)
• You can define the Publication if you know the name of the Journal
• Limit your Published Date (recommended that you limit your search to the most recent 3-5 years...unless you are doing a historical perspective)

Here is what my screen shot would look like if I were looking for articles that met the following criteria:

• The terms "gender communicaiton" and "differences" are in the body of the article
• I want full text only
• I want peer reviewed only
• I want articles published between 2010 and 2011

In this search I got 9 articles...very nicely focused...the first one, titled "Mars, Venus, and Gray: Gender Communication" actually compares the models of two major writers in Gender Communication, Deborah Tannen (who wrote the book "You Just Don't Understand") and John Gray (who write "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus")

Click HERE to view the actual article that I found!

That might make a pretty good research paper!

Of course, you are going to have to play around with this and "get to know it" based on your own interests. Once you get a good handle on how to use this, you will start to prefer these types of searchers over others.

Good luck!