Issues and Controversies and Opposing Viewpoints Access and Usage Amy V. Cummings, Library Media Specialist

Start out on the HVM site. Click the library link on the left.

This is the library’s page. Click the link to Hidden Valley High School.

This is the Hidden Valley High Page. Click the library link on the left.

Click the link to go to the research databases.

Let’s begin with “Issues and Controversies.”

Let’s do a search for opposing viewpoints related to Palestine. Type your topic in the box and click “go.”

Click an article’s title to read it.

As you read the article notice that the search terms you used show up in red. Topics similar to yours that you may want to try can be clicked on the left. You might want to try this!

Now let’s go back to the HVHS databases page and try Opposing Viewpoints. Right click it and choose to open it in a new window.

There are two ways to search. First, let’s try typing the topic we want in the search box.

Each tab across the top of the screen offers a different kind of resource. The first tab gives viewpoint essays. Let’s take a look at the first one. Click here.

This is what a viewpoint essay looks like. It begins with some information about the author of the essay and some points to consider as you read.

Scroll back to the top of the screen to look at the other tabs for other sources of information on the topic. The second tab offers reference books such as Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations. This is a book!

The fourth tab offers magazine and newspaper articles. They are listed beginning with the most current.

The seventh tab offers suggested Web sites that you can be sure are reliable. The tabs that show as gray don’t offer information this time, but sometimes they do.

The pink area on the left offers other related topic searches that you may try if you don’t see what you need here. These topics may offer more help.

Let’s go back to the main page. The other search option is to click on a topic from the main screen. Click here.

After clicking “Middle East” from the main screen, we have the same results as if we had typed it in the search box. The related topics are on the left.

Just Remember… If you find magazine, newspaper, reference book, and encyclopedia articles from databases, you should cite them as you would the print versions. However, in your works cited entry, you must also give credit to the database that you used to find each article. The databases are not your sources of information. Your sources of information are the articles that the databases helped you find!

For example, this is how you would cite a magazine article from the Opposing Viewpoints database. Somini, Sengupta. “After New Talks, India Says it May Pull Troops from Kashmir.” The New York Times. 6 Sept Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Hidden Valley Middle School Library, Roanoke. 3 Oct