The Ugly American?

This term was coined by William Lederer back in 1958 when he wrote a book with the same title.

What discovery tools on the library's web site will help you locate recent perspectives of Americans or the United States?

Three Questions

A researcher must ask three questions continually during the research process.

• What knowledge domain will provide answers?
• What tools within that domain will provide answers for my project?
• What words or phrases will retrieve relevant results?

These questions are not asked just once, but asked repeatedly as you cycle through the research process.

STEP ONE: What Knowledge Domains?

What subject guides will provide answers for your topic?

• Foreign Policy [ Political Science ]
• American Popular Culture [ Communication Arts and Sciences Interdisciplinary ]
• America/Americans in the News [Search for Newspaper Articles ]
• Consumption of Resources [Economics and Business Environmental Sciences Interdisciplinary ]

Seldom will answers be found in only one knowledge domain.

STEP TWO: Which Tools Within a Knowledge Domain?

Within each subject guide you will find a list of useful tools. The Reference Materials section identifies useful dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, etc. These tools are useful for gaining an overview or summary of the topic, and for discovering clues for further research.

The Research Databases section identifies tools for locating journal articles related to your topic. (The research databases often locate more than journal articles, but that is the primary purpose of most of them.)

An Exception to the rule: To find out what international newspapers are saying about America or Americans, a researcher needs to use the Guides for Finding... link. These guides focus on the format of the tools, not on the subject matter of the tools. 

Using the guide entitled Search for Newspaper Articles a researcher will locate the following tools

• InfoTrac Custom Newspapers
• Lexis/Nexis
• Internet Public Library: Newspapers

WebCat should be searched for all your research needs. WebCat will provide book-length discussions on your topic. Unlike journal articles, books provide comprehensive coverage of an issue.

STEP THREE: What Search Terms?

You will go a long way in most research databases by using the term "anti-americanism". However, in some databases, that may not be the best search term. For example,

• foreign public opinion [subject] in WebCat

• united states foreign opinion [subject] in PAIS and Social Sciences Abstracts 
• united states public opinion [subject] in General Reference Center Gold 
• LexisNexis Academic - Follow this path:

Guided News Search --> General News --> Major Papers (Source List)

Navigating the Hekman Library Web Site

The library's web site is designed to be a large and comprehensive discovery tool for college-level research. In this site you will find high quality sources, both physical and digital, that will make the research process easier.

Google is a great discovery tool, but it does not organize sources or provide sophisticated searching like the tools found on the library's web site.

This screen shot of the front page of the Hekman Library web site identifies several methods for locating research tools.