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Learning Community HP: Texas Redistricting: Home

Course guide for students in the Learning Community HP.

Your Librarian

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Lisa Louis
she/her/hers
Contact:
361.825.5905
lisa.louis@tamucc.edu
Office: Bell Library Rm. 113

Ask Us!

 
  • Call: 361-825-2340
  • Text: 361-726-4986
  • Email us
  • Visit the Circulation Desk in Bell Library

Finding Newspaper Articles

These databases have both national and Texas newspapers. Try these tips while searching for resources:

  • Enter relevant keywords like "redistricting" or the last name of your characters
    • If your character is fictional, their name will not provide useful resources
  • With words like "redistricting" try typing them into the database with an asterisk at the end like this: redistrict* This tells the database to give you results that include the words redistrict, redistricting, and redistricted
  • Spelling matters! If you type in "redistrictin" instead of "redistricting" you won't get the results you should
  • Use filters on the left side of the results page:
    • Date Search filter lets you limit results to just those surrounding the dates of the event (2000-2004)
    • Source Name filter lets you select which source (newspaper) you'd like to see results from, like the Corpus Christi Caller Times or the Houston Chronicle
    • Source Locations filter will limit results to just those from Texas or Corpus Christi
  • When you find an article you want to use, click on the title, grab a permalink (icon that looks like two chain links hooked together), grab the citation (icon that looks like quotation marks), and download the article if you'd like a copy saved on your personal device

Internet Resources

There are lots of great resources available to you on the internet. If you're doing a Google search, try these tips:

  • if you want to find government resources try adding "site:.gov" to your search to limit the results to just government website
    • example: redistricting site:.gov
  • if you want to make sure that the results showing up has a particular phrase, rather than just one word, try adding quotations mark
    • example: "texas redistricting"
  • you can also add the word AND in between key words to tell Google that you want results that both words in them
    • "Corpus Christi" AND redistricting site:.gov

Some places to check:

  • Politicians have personal webpages, but they often aren't government websites (they don't end in .gov). To find webpages, just google the senator's name and look for a website that has a .org or .com ending. Most politicians' official websites will have the politicians' name in the URL
    • example: betoorourke.com or tedcruz.org
  • If the politician is currently in the Texas or national government, they may also have an official government website. This would end in .gov
  • Reporters often have short biographies on their newspapers' websites. Some of these might be blocked behind a pay wall, but you can google a jounalist's name and their newspaper to see if a bio is available and accessible.

Some Source to Get You Started