The best place to start searching is usually the main search box on the library's homepage.
The main search box provides access to books, periodicals, scholarly (peer reviewed) academic journal articles, ebooks, media, and credible online resources--all with one simple search. Entering a few keywords in this box will automatically search over 100 separate databases, each of which includes material from literally thousands of different sources.
There are a few special databases, though, that are particularly helpful to students in first-year composition classes. These databases are online collections of the types of articles that most professors want students to use in their ENGL 100, ENGL 101, and ENGL 102 research papers. These databases also categorize their content according to certain subject areas that are frequently written about by students in those classes.
Instructors often ask students to find “scholarly”, “academic”, or “peer reviewed” sources of information for their research. These terms all refer to the same type of information – sources based on in-depth research, and are considered higher in quality and more reliable for your research.
These sources can range from chapters within books or entire books, or journal articles, but all have common characteristics that can help you recognize that type of information.