COMM112 - Persuasive Speaking

You don't need to find an opinion article. Articles that contain evidence are even more useful for making an argument.  Types of evidence that can help include:

• Statistics
• Data from scientific studies (use journal Databases)
• Facts taken from reliable news sources (Use News Databases)

Photo credit: Smoking Gun photograph ©Charles Knowles, used under a CC By 2.0 license

• Article databases are found on our Database Page. 
• Which database is best? It depends on your subject. For some topics a general database such as Academic OneFile works well.
• You may want to use a more specialized database that covers journals in a specific subject area. For example, if you are making an argument about school vouchers, you may want to look at a database that covers education journals.
• There is a dropdown list of broad subject areas on the database page, or you can ask the librarian for a suggestion.

All the electronic databases listed in this section may be accessed by going to the library's Database Page. If you are using databases from off campus, you will need your My Chemeketa user name and password.

All of these resources are found on the database pages. If you are accessing databases from outside the Chemeketa campus, you will need your My Chemeketa user name and password. All of these databases include statistics and graphics as well as arguments for and against each topic.

CQ Researcher

CQ Researcher  is a weekly magazine, each issue of which covers one newsworthy topic. The library has online access. Sections of the online magazine called "Overview" and "Pro-Con", ask and give views on several questions. For example, in the issue called "Gun Violence," the questions are about possible measures society might take to reduce gun violence:

• "Should schools adopt additional security measures to try to prevent mass shootings?"
• "Should it be harder for someone with a history of mental illness to obtain a gun?"
• "Should laws limiting the carrying of concealed weapons be relaxed?"
• "Should guns be allowed on college campuses?"

Tip: Help with writing an MLA or APA style citation for a CQ Researcher article is available by clicking the CiteNow! link near the top of the page above the article.

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints is a database that provides background information and viewpoint articles on controversial issues. The database includes viewpoint articles, along with topic overviews, court case overviews, and organization profiles.

The "Expert Picks," "Viewpoints" and "Reference" lists on the search results page have chapters from Opposing Viewpoints, Current Controversies, and other series of books that have controversial content and are published by Gale.

SIRS Issues Researcher is a ProQuest database that includes articles, primary sources, websites, and multimedia covering a variety of viewpoints and current controversial topics. It is searchable by keyword or contents can be browsed by subject area. 

In addition to the library's subscribed databases there are a number of specialized datbases available on the Web. Some are very useful.