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Economics

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to ECON 223W guide. This guide aims to help you use QC Libraries' Economics and business resources and library services through Queens College Libraries Website. Reading this guide and doing the suggested exercises, you should be able to:

  • Get familiar with QC Libraries' Economics and business resources
  • Effectively use library search tools to find books, articles and other resources for your research
  • Learn how to evaluate information sources
  • Properly use library resources to do your research

QC libraries provide quality resources for economics research, such as scholarly journals and full-text journal articles, e-books, newspaper articles, data sources, etc. You can use powerful library search tools to find what you need:

             -- About OneSearch

             -- Advanced Search

               ** E-Journals

             -- A-Z Databases: Economics Databases, Business Databases

** Please remember, you need your CUNYFirst credentials to access library E-resources if you work off campus. 

Access using your CUNYfirst ID followed by @login.cuny.edu, and your CUNYfirst password.

Your CUNY Login credentials follow the  pattern: Firstname.LastnameNN@login.cuny.edu, where “NN” is the last 2+ digits of your CUNY EMPLID. If you are a guest user, your CUNY Login account username will be the one you set in the CUNY Portal.

If you forgot your CUNY Login credentials and need to reset either your username or password, please visit the CUNY Login Account Service page.

For more information about your CUNY Login Credentials, please visit CUNY Login FAQs.

Remote Library Services

We are here to help you! Please do not hesitate to ask us questions:

  • FAQs
  • 24/7 live chat with librarian 
  • Live chat with information services and/or Research services within library hours

Visiting Rosenthal Library

  • To enter Rosenthal Library, you should have your Queens College QCards
  • Tap your QCard to enter via the turnstiles
  • In the event that you don not yet have your QCard, you can be temporarily allowed entry as long as you have your EMPLID and alternate photo ID to present at the front desk.

See Visiting - Queens College Libraries (cuny.edu) for more information.

Research Process & References

  • Starting with a research topic
  • Formulating research question(s)
  • Finding high-quality books, book chapters, or journal articles relevant to the research topic/question(s)
  • Writing an annotated bibliography or literature review 
  • Citing Sources Properly

 

What is your research topic or research question(s)? Generally, a research starts with a general topic in which you are interested. For example, you may be interested in one of following topics:

  • Globalization
  • Immigration
  • Industrialization
  • Industrial Organization

If you need more background information about a topic, you can find reference resources via:

In the meantime, you may need to think about what research question(s) you may present based on the topic. To formulate a research question about your topic, you may need to read more literature relevant to your topic. 

To find literature or resources (i.e., scholarly articles, newspaper articles, e-books, etc.) relevant to your topic, you can do a brainstorm to generate some keywords for searching. In addition to the concept(s) of your topic, the keywords can be the terms related to the concept(s) in your topic, for example:

  • The synonyms of the topic concept(s)
  • Hierarchical concepts related to the topic concept(s) 
  • Contextual terms or background terms gathered from a background reading

** Tips – take notes to gather keywords when you're brainstorming, reading and searching.

Library Resources and Search Strategies

The best place to start your search for books is OneSearch, which can be accessed from the Queens College Libraries homepage. OneSearch searches across multiple library resources from one interface. It finds books, articles, digital content, and other resources -- but it works best at finding books. You can use OneSearch to find both print book and e-books.

Start by entering basic search terms in the search box, then select "Search." You'll be able to limit your results in the next step.

Tip: If you know what you're looking for, use the title or author as your search term. 

 Databases & Digital Collections:

America History & Life. Books and articles in history, including economic history for the United States Canada and Mexico.

Econlit. Most comprehensive database to scholarly journal articles in economics. Also lists books and dissertations, and articles within collective works.

Historical Abstracts. Historical database for books and articles on all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to present.

Google Scholar.  Database for articles books and papers. On campus it connects to licensed content held by the QC libraries.

Economist Historical Archive. Complete searchable copy of the Economist since it was first published in 1843 through 2020. 

U.S. Newsstream. Enables users to search current U.S. news content (The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune), as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s.

Making of the Modern World. an extraordinary series which covers the history of Western trade, encompassing the coal, iron, and steel industries, the railway industry, the cotton industry, banking and finance, and the emergence of the modern corporation.

Some tips to use library resources for your research:

  • Start with the databases if you look for journal articles
  • Don't limit publication dates for historical research
  • Do limit to the Historical Period you are interested in if allowed, e.g., America: History & Life
  • Use OneSearch and recommended databases

Pay attention:

  1. Use key words instead of a full sentence
  2. AND--   less hits/results, but more accurate.                                                                                                                               E.g., airlines AND economics
  3. OR --  get more hits/results, but they may be less accurate.                                                                                                        E.g., statistics OR demographics  
  4. "quotation marks" --  get less hits/results, but more accurate.                                                                                                E.g., "United States" 
  5. * -- use asterisk to get more hits/results, but may be less accurate. 

     E.g.,  econo* = economic, economics, economies, economy, economical, etc.

  6. NOT -- get less hits/results, but more accurate.                                                                                                                          E.g., (economics AND slavery) NOT "united states"                                                                                         

View examples.

Resources Gathering and Using

          - CRAAP: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose/Point of View
          - Scholarly vs. Popular Sources
          - Primary vs. Secondary Sources

* annual reports, financial statements, press releases, interviews, speeches, blog entries or tweets vs. industry market reports, articles from journals, newspapers, magazines, trade publications 

           - Apply citation rules consistently​

           - Check errors in auto-generated citations

             Includes FAQ and tutorial about using APA style guide

  • Resource gathering tools provided by databases

            - Cite " " undefined
            - Full-text (PDF) download undefined
            - Find it @ CUNY undefined
            - Email undefined