Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to request books and articles that aren't available at WCU. The ILL page has information on creating an account and a user guide for utilizing this service.
Reference sources are a group of resources including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and fact books. They cover definitions of subject-specific vocabulary, provide general overviews of a topic, and answer quick facts. They may also suggest sources for further reading.
Reference material can be designed for general audiences or for specialists on a subject.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
Books provide in-depth coverage of a topic and, since they are longer, they provide a big-picture view. They may be targeted at general audiences or experts. Since the book publication process takes time, information is not the most up to date, especially for fast-changing fields, like the sciences.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
Scholarly journal articles are written by experts to further the research of their academic field. They consist primarily of new research, though they can include literature reviews, editorials, some news, and reviews of books and products that scholars might use.
Since the target audience for scholarly articles is academics (including undergraduates, in many cases), they are often narrow in focus and presume the reader is already familiar with the topic. Most scholarly journals practice peer review, where an article is not published until it has been approved by multiple experts on that topic.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
Professional, or trade, journals are similar to news sources or magazines, but are focused on a specific industry, business, or profession. Unlike scholarly journals, they are targeted to practitioners rather than researchers and are usually not peer reviewed. For example, a professional education journal would be aimed towards teachers and school administrators, rather than education researchers.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
Magazines are usually a mix of short news, investigative news articles, longer articles that provide analysis or context, and/or opinion pieces. Some magazines are very broad in coverage, while others focus on specific topics or interests. Magazines are not peer reviewed nor considered scholarly. Many blogs replicate the mix of content that characterizes magazines.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
News sources cover current events. They tend to be more focused on the details rather than the big picture, though they will provide some overview information. Some news sources feature detailed investigative reporting. They can be delivered in a wide variety of formats, such as in print, online, television, and radio programs.
They are great for finding the following information:
Examples:
Start with general keywords for your higher level topic (leadership communication) to find more general works.
Try adding more terms to your original search (leadership communication crisis management). If that doesn't get you results, try splitting your original search terms up and using them on their own with the second level terms (leadership crisis management or communication crisis management).
Remember to use quotation marks around words you want searched as a phrase. "Crisis Communication" (with quotes) means you should only see results where those words are together and in that order.
If you can't find anything in your area of interest in WCU's collection, try searching ASU and UNCA's collections as well.
When you are searching in the library's book search (not OneSearch) you can change the location you are searching from WCU-only to WNCLN (ASU, UNCA, & WCU).
Once you have a list of results you'll want to exclude the ebooks because we are unable to share those materials with other schools. To look at just books, click on the 'modify search' link above the search box:
Then choose 'book' from the material type to make sure you only see print books and click on submit: