Advanced Writing in the Disciplines (AWD) : 3302 (Technical Professions)

Key Resources

Academic databases usually contain the most up-to-date and in-depth information on your topic. While Scholar OneSearch is a great place to start your research, subject-specific databases can give you more focused results. For topics in Engineering and Computer Science, try:

ACM Digital Library (Association for Computing Machinery) This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to most periodicals and conference proceedings from a leading computer engineering society. Covers 1985 to the present, including proceedings and publications of affiliated societies.
Engineering Village This link opens in a new window
Combines the citations and full text links of Compendex and Inspec with full text books from Knovel, for a more comprehensive search on computer science and engineering topics.
Coverage: 1969 to present, including some older backfiles, and new articles in press from over 1,000 journals.
IEEEXplore (IEEE/IET Electronic Library) This link opens in a new window
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers is the world's largest association for the advancement of technology. This database gives access to technical literature in engineering and technology, and includes select content published since 1950 from IEEE journals, transactions, magazines, conference proceedings, and standards.
Computers & Applied Sciences Complete (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for more than 1,800 academic journals (730 in full text), professional publications, and other reference sources from a diverse collection relating to computer science. Links to full text.
Web of Science, Core Collection 1975-present This link opens in a new window
Use for citation tracking, finding seminal literature, data visualizations, author alerts, institutional affiliations, and impact factors. Links to full text.
Includes:
Arts and Humanities Citation Index
Science Citation Index
Social Science Citation Index
Book Citation Index (2005-present)
Conference Citation Index
Emerging Sources Citation Index
Current Chemical Reactions Index
Index Chemicus
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statistics brought together from governments, industry, international organizations, scholarly societies, polls, and more. Expressed as easy-to-use charts, some data is downloadable.
Ulrichs Web This link opens in a new window
This website helps you determine if a publication is "peer reviewed". Search the title of the journal...the referee shirt means it's reviewed, or "refereed"!

Annotated bibliographies

Get information here about annotated bibliographies

Tutorial: Finding Peer Reviewed Articles (view PDF version and more peer-review tutorials)

Reference Resources

Reference databases and encyclopedias don't offer up-to-the-minute research, but they do provide important context and background information on a broad array of topics.

A selection of reference databases is listed below. You can also browse the complete list on the library's website.

Encyclopedia Britannica
One of the largest and most-used encyclopedias in the world.
Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology
Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology is focused specifically on the field of information science.
Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology
Encyclopedia of Materials covers all aspects of the materials sciences and is useful for researchers in engineering, physics, chemistry and the biomedical sciences.
IEEE Editorial Style Manual
IEEE webpage, contains the complete guidelines for manuscript presentation and citation referencing for IEEE publications, and related information.
Knovel Library
A core reference source for engineering, Knovel Library provides engineering-specific definitions, data sets, and materials information from a large library of textbooks, reference manuals, dictionaries and encyclopedias.
O'Reilly for Higher Education
Focused on computer and information science, O'Reilly contains many handbooks and references. To access, set up an account with your Northeastern email address.

Ask Your Librarian

You can contact your subject specialist librarian by clicking on their name below or by navigating to their subject guides:

Jodi Bolognese, Engineering Librarian
Alissa Link Cilfone, Biosciences Librarian
- Bioengineering Guide
Rachel Landis, Computer and Information Science Librarian
- Computer and Information Science Guide

View complete list of subject librarians and specialists.

Or, contact us at Ask a Reference Librarian!

Need help with writing?

Support from Northeastern's Writing Center includes:

Writing in STEM - a list of guides and other resources for learning to write in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields
Writing Resources - for topics like grammar and style, vocabulary, revision techniques, support for multilingual writers, and other campus resources
Tutoring services - book an appointment for free help with brainstorming, planning, researching, organizing, drafting, revising and using sources.

Need a quick refresh on your research skills?

The library has many more research tutorials on common research questions and skills. To see what else is available, visit the library's Research Tutorials page.

News Media Resources

To see how the media writes about your topic, try these resources:

Access World News Research Collection (Newsbank) This link opens in a new window
Our largest general news source, with current and complete newspapers, magazines, wire services from around the world. Backfiles sometimes go back to the 1980s. Text only.
View a list of all sources.
New York Times (summary of Northeastern access options) This link opens in a new window
Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window
Leading economic, business, finance, and political news, information, commentary and analysis. For historic WSJ content dating back to 1985, please use Factiva
Individual registration using a Northeastern email address is required.