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ENVS 2050: Nature, Society and Sustainability

Welcome

This research guide will take you through the process of gathering sources for the Flint Water Crisis Group Assignment in ENVS 2050. This guide covers:

1. Finding your sources

2. Types of news articles

3. Getting organized

Sources

Newspaper databases

NOTE about the New York Times: You can use either Nexis Uni or U.S. Newsstream to search through the NY Times. In U.S. Newsstream, the New York Times is called "New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast)". DO NOT use "New York Times (Online)". 

You may notice discrepancies in the number of search results between the two databases, this is just because of slightly different search algorithms and default settings.

Michigan Radio coverage

Not Safe to Drink series

Using databases

  1. Find your assigned newspaper by opening the menu in the top right corner and selecting Publications.

screen capture from U.S. Newsstream

  1. Search for your publication.
  2. On the publication's page, click Advanced Search.

screen capture from U.S. Newsstream

  1. Put your keyword(s) in the second search field. You may want to change what this searches in (drop-down menu to the right of the search bar). You could limit to just the title, title and abstract, subjects, or choose Anywhere.

screen capture from U.S. Newsstream

  1. Enter your date range by selecting Specific date range... in the publication date drop-down menu.
  2. Click Search to see results
  1. Search for your newspaper using the search bar that is just above the list of sources.

screen capture from Michigan Newspapers database

  1. When you find your newspaper, click to open it.
  2. Enter keywords to search within your newspaper. You may want to select a field to search within (All Text, Lead/First Paragraph, Headline, etc.)
  3. Enter your date range in the second search bar. The little question mark in this search bar explains how you can format your dates. MM/DD/YYYY - MM/DD/YYYY should work.

screen capture from Michigan Newspapers database

  1. Hit Enter or click the Search button to see your results.
  1. Use the search bar at the top to type your keywords.
  2. Narrow by date with the drop-down menu to the right of the search bar. Select custom dates.

screen capture from Nexis Uni

  1. Click the red magnifying glass to see your search results.

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