Ethnic Newswatch

"Ethnic NewsWatch™ includes current journals, magazines, and newspapers from ethnic and independent presses. Content covers 1990-present, with specialized coverage of the following ethnic categories: African American/Caribbean/African; Arab/Middle Eastern; Asian/Pacific Islander; European/Eastern European; Hispanic; Jewish; Native People. It is updated daily with new content and contains over 2 million full text articles."

This database uses the new look Proquest platform. It starts you off on a page that allows you to perform a basic keyword search. This page also allows you to navigate the database. Some of the noteworthy options include limiting searches to full text or scholarly journal articles. An advanced search page as well as a list of included publications can also be selected. Further options include search tips, a help page, and the ability to toggle between about twenty different languages. Furthermore, a preferences page can be set up to customize Proquest to your research. One excellent feature on this page near the top right corner of the page is a tab which keeps track of your recent searches. Simply click the tab and a list of performed searches is provided. Finally, on the web page below the search box is an area with a few tabs titled "Search Subject Areas". This section is a little confusing and seems to provide some crossover to other Proquest databases that we subscribe to at SWC such as Proquest Historical Newspapers and access to the San Diego Union Tribune through Proquest.

The advanced search page is pretty typical and allows you to search in a number of different fields such as title, author, subject, etc. You can enter multiple search terms if desired. In addition, it allows you to limit your search by full text, scholarly journal, a date range, a document type, or a particular language. It also lets you sort the results by relevance or publication date. You can change the amount of results allowed all the way up to a hundred per page which is kind of nice.

Once a search is performed a list of results is provided and standard citation information is included. You can choose to view the page by clicking on the title but one nice option is to scroll over a "preview" tab which provides an abstract and the major subjects included in the article. The results can be tagged and saved to a folder for later viewing or you can choose to look at the full text immediately. If you choose to click on an article a standard tool bar at the top allows you to email it to yourself, save it, view citation information, and print.

Ethnic Newswatch is an effective database if you are looking for publications from foreign countries and other nontraditional sources.

SWC students, staff, and faculty may use the library databases from off-campus with the current semester's passwords. Use the online password request form.

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