Library Catalogs

OU Library Catalog--Includes books, government documents, music, DVDs, and journals (but does NOT index articles). You can find out if the library has or has access to a journal, but you cannot determine what journals have articles on a particular topic.

World Cat--union catalog of libraries worldwide

MelCat--union catalog of many Michigan libraries; 1st stop to interloan books

Subject headings

Communication [Note the many "narrower" terms--such as, Information Theory, Intercultural Communication, Interpersonal Communication, etc.]

Boolean Keyword searching:

"communication theor?"

"expectancy violations"

and many more!

Reference Books

Webster's New World Dictionary of Media and Communications Ref. P 87.5 .W45 1996

Encyclopedia of Communication and Information
Ref. P 87.5 .E53 2001

Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications
Ref. P 87.5 .E532 2003

Battleground: The Media Ref. P 95.8 .B38 2008

Credo Reference--a collection of online reference books that are a good (more scholarly/authoritative) alternative to Wikipedia.

"Quick" definitions of communication theories

Glossary of Theories--from Richard West and Lynn H. Turner's Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Overview of Communication Theories--from the Communication Studies web site of the University of Twente, the Netherlands

 

Contact Information

Library Instructor:Daniel F Ring ring@oakland.edu
Need help, have a question? Contact me or "Ask a Librarian."

Course Instructor: Kelly Hay Kellie Hay (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is an Associate Professor. Dr. Hay teaches courses in critical communication theory, feminist cultural studies, multicultural communication, whiteness and performance studies. Her research is ethnographic and focuses on three sets of communication issues: how travel and global displacement effect the production of identities in differences; power relations and materiality; and the ways in which performance, the body and dance are ways of knowing. Dr. Hay works with local Arab-American communities. She has a deep interest in articulating the racisms and issues of displacement that shape the processes through which Arab-Americans negotiate multiple national attachments. Dr. Hay's research has been published in Quarterly Journal of Speech, International Journal of Communication, Intercultural and International Communication Annual, Critical Readings: Violence and the Media, and Journal of American Culture. For further details or questions e-mail hay@oakland.edu.

Databases/Periodical Indexes & E-Journal Collections

Communication Studies: SAGE Full text--This is the only database OU has that is entirely devoted to communication. However, there are only 21 journals indexed--all from one publisher, Sage. Click on "advanced search" tab and place a check in the box by "Communications" to search for articles. All of these journals are "academic."

PsycInfo--Obviously the focus here is on "psychology," but a lot of communication journals are also indexed here. If you are getting a lot of irrelevant "hits" when you search your topic, try adding "communication" as a "descriptor" to your search. Select your results from the "peer-reviewed journals" tab.

Academic OneFile--A general purpose database that indexes journals in most all disciplines--which makes it useful for such a multidisciplinary field as communication. Results first displayed are articles from "academic" journals.

Humanities Abstracts and Social Sciences Abstracts--Communication is sometimes considered a humanities subject and in other cases a social science so both of these databases can be useful. Most of the journals indexed are "academic." Most of the journals indexed in these resources are "academic." However, you may want to note the "peer-reviewed" label found in the full description of articles from "academic" journals.

JSTOR--Online collection of many scholarly journals from volume 1 until 2 to 5 years ago. Full text of articles is searchable! Problem: JSTOR does not use subject headings. If you get too many results searching your term/topic in "full-text" try restricting them to "article title." All of the journals included here are "academic."

For still other databases relevant to Communication, see the Databases by Subject listing for Communication.

Is your article from an "academic" source?

1. See the "hints" in italics in the database descriptions above.

2. If you are still not sure if your title is "academic," try looking it up in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Note that there is an "icon" indicating if a journal is "refereed."

3. "Peer-reviewed" and "refereed" journals are ones whose articles are selected for inclusion by first being "reviewed" by experts/specialists in the field. In other words, these are a subset of "academic" journals.

4. "Scholarly" is another term sometimes used for "academic" journals. See the library's tutorial about how to differentiate between popular "magazines" and scholarly "journals."

Other Info

APA Citation Guide

Does the library have access to a journal online? Easiest way to find out is to check the "E-Journals A to Z " from the library's "Find Articles" page.

When you are using the library's databases, be sure to click on the blue link when the article you want does not have a full text link in the database. will then take you to the article from another source. If there is no online access for the article, you can click on the library catalog link to see if there are print holdings. If the libary has no print copy of the article, you can link to a form to request a copy of the article via interlibrary loan.

• RefWorks - a reference management tool that allows you to create a personal database of references and automatically generate formatted bibliographies for your projects.