Library Workshops
Click here for the Copley Library workshops calendar, which you can also use to register. If you have questions about a workshop please contact the presenter(s).
Style Guides
Click any of the links below for formatting guidelines.
Note: APA is the standard for Communication USD.
- APA TutorialsOnline tutorials from the official APA website.
- Academic Writer Tutorial - Basics of Seventh Edition APA StyleThis free tutorial on the basics of APA Style, 7th edition, is designed for writers new to this citation style.
Preventing Plagiarism Tutorial
Take this tutorial to learn more about avoiding plagiarism and using APA style for in-text citations and references.
Writing Help
- Writing CenterThe USD Writing Center helps students improve their academic writing. Site also includes quick links for useful tips.
New Books and Media for Communication
Subscribe to this feed to see the most recent 100 new items that are now available at Copley Library.
Welcome to the Communication Guide
This guide is designed to give you a start on your research in Communication. Use the tabs above to navigate to the different sections of this guide.
Click here to go to the Department of Communication home page.
Key Electronic Resources
Use the databases below for locating news stories, scholarly articles, and bibliographies.
- Communication Source This link opens in a new windowCommunication Source was developed from a merger of Communication & Mass Media Complete and Communication Abstracts. It offers abstracts and indexing for more than 1,000 core titles as well as over 670 full-text journals dating back to 1900. In addition, the database features a subject-specific thesaurus.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for over 2,940 scholarly publications including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, health sciences, and ethnic studies.
- JSTORIncludes archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable.
- Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new windowThe database includes bibliographic citations for materials ranging from the first U.S. dissertation, accepted in 1861, to those accepted as recently as last semester. Dissertations published from 1980 forward also include 350-word abstracts.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Provides online access to the full text of over 100 scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowIncludes psychology and relevant materials from related disciplines such as medicine, psychiatry, education, social work, law, criminology, animal behavior, and organizational behavior. Allows you to limit to USD holdings and includes links to full-text.
- Sage Premier Journals This link opens in a new windowThe Premier package provides access to virtually all of the SAGE journal titles in the social sciences, business, humanities, medicine, physical and life sciences, including a backfile dating back to 1999. Journals can be browsed by title.
- Screen Studies This link opens in a new window
Screen Studies is a dynamic digital platform taking users from script to screen and beyond – offering a broad range of content from Bloomsbury and Faber & Faber to support moving-image studies.
- Nexis UniFormerly Lexis Nexis Academic Universe, this database provides full-text access to more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
- Factiva This link opens in a new window
Factiva includes the Dow Jones and Reuters news wires, The Wall Street Journal and over 8,000 other magazines, newspapers, and trade journals from a wide variety of disciplines.
- Global Newsstream This link opens in a new window
Global Newsstream enables users to search the most recent global news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full- text format.
- Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Newspaper Source provides cover-to-cover full text for more than 40 (U.S.) and international newspapers. The database also contains selective full text for 389 regional (U.S.) newspapers. In addition, full text television and radio news transcripts are also provided.
- Los Angeles Times This link opens in a new window
Full-text coverage of the LA times from 1985 to the present.
- New York Times (1980-Present) This link opens in a new window
This is considered the official U.S. newspaper because it publishes the complete text of important documents, speeches and presidential press conferences. The paper's reporters have won scores of Pulitzer Prizes throughout the publication's 150-year history.
- Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new windowAmerican Film Scripts Online contains 1,009 scripts by 1,062 writers together with detailed, fielded information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. In addition, the database includes facsimilie images for more than 500 of these screenplays.
- Pew Research Journalism ProjectFree resource providing access to essays, articles, reports, and data sets.
New Books and Media
- New Books, Videos, and Audio RecordingsClick the link to a guide featuring the most recent additions to the collection at Copley Library
New English Language Feature Films
This feed shows the English films recently added to the collection.
New Foreign Language Films
This feed shows foreign language films recently added to the collection.
Communication Librarian
5998 Alcalá Park
San Diego, CA 92110-2492
Please contact me if you need assistance with finding information or getting help researching for your projects.
hburkhart@sandiego.edu
For remote consultations and instruction sessions via Zoom, please email