English Research Guide

This resource guide will help you:

• Locate library databases that contain news articles, scholarly/peer-reviewed articles, videos, and more.
• Utilize strategies to search for articles in a library database.
• Locate resources to assist with MLA style.

Here are the slides shown during the in-person library research session:

Brainstorm and enter your search terms into the keyword search box to start a search. For example:

• redlining
• housing discrimination
• affordable housing

Use AND to focus your search on a smaller result set. For example:

• redlining AND Pasadena
• affordable housing AND Los Angeles
• redlining AND minorities
• housing discrimination AND Black families

Use quotation marks to search on specific phrases:

• "mortgage discrimination"
• "Fair Housing Act"

Use filters to further refine your results. For example:

• use the "journals" or "articles" filter to display only the scholarly article content
• use the date filter to enter a date range

• Read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience online (via PCC Library's EbscoHost database)

• Looking for more databases to choose from? Check out PCC Library's full list of databases on the A-Z Database List page

Create and check your citations using one of these MLA style guides:

• MLA Style "Quick Guide" from PCC

Includes guidelines and examples of MLA citations.

• MLA Formatting and Style Guide from OWL Purdue

Examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and Works Cited pages.

• MLA Handbook, 9th Edition

The MLA Handbook guides writers through the principles behind evaluating sources for their research. It then shows them how to cite sources in their writing and create useful entries for the works-cited list.

PCC Library has several copies located at the Reference Desk and Circulation Desk.

Call Number: LB2369 .G53 2021

• Setting up "hanging indents"

Walks through setting up "hanging indents" in Microsoft Word and Google Docs