LibGuides: SPCH-S 121 : Public Speaking Resources: Articles & Databases

Communication Resources

Top Resources
All Resources

These resources are a starting point for research. Depending on your topic, other resources in the All Resources tab may be more helpful. If you need help, please Ask a Librarian.

Academic Search Complete
This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 10,506 journals, including full text for 3,229 non-open access peer-reviewed titles.

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 4,600 journals, including full text for nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
Black Thought and Culture
Black Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present.

Black Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present. Contains research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
Communication & Mass Media Complete
Communication & Mass Media Complete provides a research solution in areas related to communication and mass media.

CMMC offers cover-to-cover (“core”) indexing and abstracts for 770 titles, and full text for over 450 journals.
CQ Researcher
The CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Researcher has full text reports about topics that are discussed in the media. Background information, trends, and forecasts are included.
Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context
Covering many subjects, Opposing Viewpoints in Context offers research and tools including pro/con viewpoint essays, biographies, statistics, topic and court case overviews and more.
Nexis Uni
Formerly LexisNexis® Academic. Nexis Uni provides comprehensive access to credible news, business, and legal research for college students and faculty.

Black Thought and Culture
Black Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present.

Black Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present. Contains research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
Chatham House Online Archive
Chatham House Online Archive contains the publications and archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), a world-leading independent international affairs policy institute.
CQ Researcher
The CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Researcher has full text reports about topics that are discussed in the media. Background information, trends, and forecasts are included.
Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA)
CPANDA, the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive, provides an interactive digital archive of policy-relevant data on the arts and cultural policy in the United States.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
The Encyclopædia Britannica, published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia.
Film Index International
Film Index International is an information resource for entertainment films and personalities produced in collaboration with the British Film Institute, with international coverage and a scholarly approach.
Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context
Covering many subjects, Opposing Viewpoints in Context offers research and tools including pro/con viewpoint essays, biographies, statistics, topic and court case overviews and more.
IngentaConnect
IngentaConnect is a resource for a great deal of academic articles through journals electronically published on its site. Full text access available for journals to which IU Northwest subscribes.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a digital library of more than 1,500 academic journals, books, and primary sources.
Meet the Press
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Meet the Press from Alexander Street Press makes this broadcast journalism program, since its television premiere in 1947, available for viewing in streaming video format. Includes interviews, panels, and debates.
The Met Collection
This online database from the Metropolitan Museum of Art provides online access to photographs and information on hundreds of thousands of items in its collection. Around half of the images in this collection have been made available by The Met for public domain.
Opposing Viewpoints Critical Thinking
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking provides information on today's hottest social issues through viewpoint articles, topic overviews, magazines, academic journals, newspaper articles, statistics and more.

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking provides information on today's hottest social issues through viewpoint articles, topic overviews, magazines, academic journals, newspaper articles, statistics and more. It offers Lexile reading levels for periodicals and an integrated national and state curriculum standards search with content correlated to the standards.
Points of View Reference Center
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Points of View Reference Center is a full text database designed to provide students and schools with a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. Essays provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles from the world’s top political and societal publications.
ProQuest Databases
An inclusive, federated search engine of all ProQuest databases simultaneously, as a resource for finding academic articles.
Social Sciences Full Text
Social Sciences Full Text provides access and indexing for over 625 social science periodicals dating back as far as 1983—nearly 400 of which are peer-reviewed.
TOPICsearch
TOPICsearch contains full text for international and regional newspapers, periodicals, biographies, public opinion polls, book reviews, pamphlets, and government information.
Wiley Online Library
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Wiley Online Library hosts a broad and deep multidisciplinary collection of online resources, including e-books and journals, covering life, health and physical sciences, social science, and the humanities. Full text available for IU Northwest subscriptions.

Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Biography Resources

These resources are a starting point for research. Depending on your topic, resources in the other tabs may be more helpful. If you need help, please Ask a Librarian.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online
The Encyclopædia Britannica, published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia.
Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
This database provides over 25,000 encyclopedic entries covering a variety of subject areas.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Free online dictionary of English language information as provided by Merriam-Webster, which has published dictionaries for over 150 years.
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world.

Bab.la Dictionaries
Bab.la offers 40 dictionaries for 28 languages, along with other functions such as phrase books and quizzes. Users may suggest words and translations to expand and improve bab.la's content.
Credo Academic Core
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Formerly Credo General Reference. Credo Reference is an online,cross searchable, full text suite of of encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, companions, atlases, chronologies, Who's whos, and other reference resources.
Dictionary of Irish Biography
The Dictionary of Irish Biography, a collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy, is a comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published for Ireland.

These 11 volumes contain short summaries and detailed assessments that document over 10,000 lives, ranging from the earliest times to 2010. Biographical subjects include: artists, scientists, lawyers, actors, musicians, writers, politicians, criminals, and saints.
Dictionary of Literary Biography
The essays of DLB outline the lives and careers of authors from all eras and genres and summarize the critical response to their work. Each entry contains personal information, principal works, and further readings.
Dictionary of Old English
The Dictionary of Old English (DOE) defines the vocabulary of the first six centuries (600 - 1150 A.D.) of the English language, using today's most advanced technology.
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
In addition to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean sources, the content includes Buddhism of Indiana, Central Asia, and Tibet. Coverage: A compilation of Buddhist terms, texts, temples, schools, persons, etc. found in Buddhist canonical sources.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
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New name: Gale eBooks. Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study. Categories include arts, biography, business, education, environment, general reference, history, information and publishing, law, literature, medicine, multicultural studies, nation and world, religion, science, social science, and technology.

Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study.
LEO English/German Dictionary
An online dictionary for terminology and translation, which includes utilities to translate English and other languages into German.
Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary
Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary is a dictionary consisting of Latin words from the Classical period up through the late medieval period.
Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science
Reference resource for library and information science, containing terms and definitions relevant to the discipline.
Online Etymology Dictionary
The Online Etymology Dictionary is a free online dictionary that describes the origins of English-language words.

Britannica Moderna
Britannica Moderna is a Spanish-language online encyclopedia.
Credo Academic Core
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Formerly Credo General Reference. Credo Reference is an online,cross searchable, full text suite of of encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, companions, atlases, chronologies, Who's whos, and other reference resources.
Encyclopedia of Earth
The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE) is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The EoE is a free, expert-reviewed collection of content contributed by scholars, professionals, educators, practitioners and other experts who collaborate and review each other's work.
Encyclopedia of Social Work
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The Encyclopedia of Social Work contains four hundred social work subject entries and two hundred brief biographies of key figures in the history of social work.
Gale Ready Reference Shelf
Ready Reference Shelf includes reference entries for associations, research centers, publishers, publications ranging from newspapers and newsletters to periodicals and directories, databases, television and radio stations and more.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
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New name: Gale eBooks. Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study. Categories include arts, biography, business, education, environment, general reference, history, information and publishing, law, literature, medicine, multicultural studies, nation and world, religion, science, social science, and technology.

Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study.
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online
This online encyclopedia is devoted to music research of all the world's peoples. Contains 9000 pages of material by 700 expert contributors.
Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
This online database gives searching and browsing access to the full, unedited 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia published between 1901 and 1906.
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia attempts to provide information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine.
Performing Arts Encyclopedia
The Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE) is a guide to performing arts resources provided by the Library of Congress, including digitized sheet music, scripts, photographs and more.
Spanish Reference Center
This site offers resources in Spanish for all ages in two unique interfaces, each with its own comprehensive encyclopedia: Enciclopedia Moderna (Enciclopedia universal en Espanol) for high school ages and up and Britannica Escolar Online for ages 6-12.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy.

Academic Search Complete
This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 10,506 journals, including full text for 3,229 non-open access peer-reviewed titles.

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 4,600 journals, including full text for nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
American National Biography
American National Biography offers biographies of more than 18,700 men and women, from all eras and walks of life, whose lives have shaped the United States.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index
Biography and Genealogy Master Index offers an index of materials to consult for biographical and genealogical information.
Biography Reference Bank
Wilson’s biography database combines profiles from Wilson Biographies Plus Illustrated, plus the periodicals coverage of Biography Index, full-text articles, page images, and abstracts from the complete range of Wilson databases.
Biography Reference Center
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Biography Reference Center offers a comprehensive collection of more than 460,000 full-text biographies, including the complete full-text run of Biography Today and Biography, as well as thousands of narrative biographies that are not available in other databases.
Biography Reference eBook Collection
This ebook reference collection offers a selection of biographical eBook titles.
Credo Academic Core
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Formerly Credo General Reference. Credo Reference is an online,cross searchable, full text suite of of encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, companions, atlases, chronologies, Who's whos, and other reference resources.
Dictionary of Irish Biography
The Dictionary of Irish Biography, a collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy, is a comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published for Ireland.

These 11 volumes contain short summaries and detailed assessments that document over 10,000 lives, ranging from the earliest times to 2010. Biographical subjects include: artists, scientists, lawyers, actors, musicians, writers, politicians, criminals, and saints.
Dictionary of Literary Biography
The essays of DLB outline the lives and careers of authors from all eras and genres and summarize the critical response to their work. Each entry contains personal information, principal works, and further readings.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
- This link opens in a new window
New name: Gale eBooks. Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study. Categories include arts, biography, business, education, environment, general reference, history, information and publishing, law, literature, medicine, multicultural studies, nation and world, religion, science, social science, and technology.

Virtual Reference Library electronically provides complete encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and more in many areas of study.
MagillOnLiterature Plus
MagillOnLiterature Plus combines literary databases MagillOnLiterature and MagillOnAuthors. This database includes literary works, reviewed critical analyses, brief plot summaries, biographies and author essays.
Something About The Author Online
Something About The Author Online provides illustrated biographical profiles of children's authors and illustrators.
Studs Terkel Radio Archive
The Studs Terkel Radio Archive provides the audio of Studs' radio interviews during his career at WFMT in Chicago between 1952 and 1997. His program covered music, health care, labor studies, diversity issues including history and culture, and a wide range of additional topics.

Pursuasive Speeches

Listed below are a few databases you can utilize to locate useful information on the topic of your persuasive speech. Of course, you can visit other databases found on this page to find unique and interesting information on the topic of your choosing.

CQ Researcher
The CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Researcher has full text reports about topics that are discussed in the media. Background information, trends, and forecasts are included.
Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context
Covering many subjects, Opposing Viewpoints in Context offers research and tools including pro/con viewpoint essays, biographies, statistics, topic and court case overviews and more.

Informative Speeches

Listed below are a few databases you can utilize to locate useful information on the topic of your informative speech.

MasterFILE Complete
Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 2,000 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1922. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Complete also contains full text for more than 1,000 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags.

This multidisciplinary database provides full text information dating as far back as 1975, and covers virtually every subject of general interest. Full text availability includes nearly 1,700 periodicals, nearly 500 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 592,000 photos, maps & flags.
Nexis Uni
Formerly LexisNexis® Academic. Nexis Uni provides comprehensive access to credible news, business, and legal research for college students and faculty.

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SPCH-S 121 : Public Speaking Resources: Articles & Databases

Communication Resources

Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Biography Resources

Pursuasive Speeches

Informative Speeches