ENGL 101 -- Written Communications II: Book Resources

In general, just enter the topic that you want to search into the search box.  Adding more terms or words won't necessarily improve your results. For example, if you are interested in in gun control, just enter "gun control" with the quotes. Using quotes will search for that phrase giving you results that are more relevant to your topic. 

Opposing Viewpoints Series

The Opposing Viewpoints Series is a good resource when you want to look at various topics and find essays that cover both sides of an issue.  The essays tend to be short--5 to 10 pages--and cover various positions and options related to a given topic-for example, gun control. They are not in one location, but can easily be located by searching for "Opposing Viewpoints" in the catalog or by clicking on the link above.

• In general, books aren't the best resource for your Written Communications II paper.  Books tend to cover a book in depth and go into more detail on a topic than is usually helpful for Written Communications II paper.  However, there are some sorts of books that really are helpful. The Opposing Viewpoints series is a good example. If you are writing a paper on Christian topics, the Counterpoints series from Zondervan does something similar.
• When searching through books, you will notice that some books go into more detail than you probably want. Books that have just the topic in the title tend to cover the topic in broader sweeps than those with more detailed titles. Books with titles like "Gun control" probably will work well for your paper, but click on the title in the catalog and then click "View description" to see the table of the contents of the book. The table of contents will give you a good a idea of what the book is about before you actually look for it on the shelf.
• When searching the catalog for books, you'll also find our e-books.