Find materials by type

Use these sources to explore current issues, find a topic for your paper, and research arguments related to that topic. 

Research databases

Websites

ProCon.org
This is a great site to give you some ideas of current topics and how to put those topics into a research question.

Public Agenda
A great source for discovering and analyzing public opinion on a current topic. Each guide contains and overview of the issue and background data including statistics from major public opinion polls in easy-to-understand graphs.

Stateline
Use this source to browse current news stories to generate research ideas. You can search this resource by individual state or on a national level.

Times Topics
Each topic page collects all the news, reference and archival information, photos, graphics, audio and video files published on topics ranging from Madonna to Myanmar. This treasure trove is available without charge on articles going back to 1981.