Finding Background Sources
Background information on the topic of your group project can help you focus and refine your research. It can provide you with a big picture context within which you can place your own work. It can provide information from reliable sources that provides a framework for readers of the report that your group produces.
Where to start?
- A database called CQ Researcher provides overviews of many current and controversial topics. It's an excellent starting point, providing an overview of the topic, historical background, current situation and future outlook, a chronology, maps and graphs, and a bibliography of additional sources.
- Be sure to use the BU Libraries Search and search for your topic along with a keyword such as: dictionary, encyclopedia or handbook to locate helpful reference sources for your topic.
Finding Books
Click the links below to see results for each topic in BU Libraries Search:
Finding Articles: Journals
Listed below are several examples of journals. Search for additional publications using the terms "sports" and "athletics" in our eJournals search.
Finding Articles: Databases
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window Academic Search Premier contains indexing, abstracts and full-text articles for scholarly publications, most of them peer-reviewed. The subjects covered include topics in the social sciences, humanities, general science, education and most areas of academic study.
- America: History & Life This link opens in a new window Covers the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada from prehistory to present times; indexes journal articles, book titles and chapters, reviews from numerous multilingual sources; all abstracts in English.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window Provides bibliographic and full text content, including indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals back to 1886 and full text journal articles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, finance and economics. The database full text content includes investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses. Sources covered by this database include Economist Intelligence Unit country reports.
- Factiva This link opens in a new window Provides worldwide full text access to local and regional newspapers, trade publications, business newswires, press release wires, media transcripts, news photos, business-rich websites, investment analyst reports, market research reports, country and regional profiles, company profiles, historical market data.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window This database is a core general science resource, covering all aspects of scientific literature. It also has a number of tools that make it a unique resource for finding scholarly literature. Item records come with links both to the works cited by the paper in question and the future works that cite that paper. Web of Science also allows the user to set up email alerts for specific authors or topics, provides researcher profiles, and to use associated journal metrics provided by the vendor.
