Using NewsBank Access World News

This database lets you search newspapers on a local, state-wide, and international basis.  It will also allow you to search on several specific newspapers of your choice.

This link will take you to the database, but specifically it will allow you to search the Denton Record Chronicle.  Being able to search the local newspaper can give you plenty of information on the status of your topic on a local level.  You'll also see how to widen your search to other nearby cities.

When you have opened this database, enter the topic you are researching in the box.  In our example, we will be working with the topic of literacy.  After entering the topic in the box, use the pull-down menu on the right to choose "in Lead/First Paragraph."  This is the best way to find relevant information on a topic.  Newspaper articles are written so that the most important information appears in the first paragraph.  Knowing that many people read only the first few sentences or paragraph of an article, they pack the most information into that first paragraph.

Tip:  If you want to be even more precise, you can choose to search in the Headline.  If nothing shows up, or if you feel your search returned too few articles, then limit to the Lead/First Paragraph.

Here are the results of our first search.

You can see that the search found 10 items.

If you need more than 10 articles, you can broaden your search by clicking on the link in the list on the left side which reads "Local Papers."

This screen allows you to choose any number of papers.  Here we've chosen Arlington Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, the Denton Record Chronicle, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  The Austin paper was included because, as the paper for the state capitol, it may give some insights on the problem as it relates to the state as a whole.

As you can see, we now have too many articles.  However, we can focus our search by the addition of another term such as "problem."

We have a smaller number, but you will notice that the first article is an obituary, which is not going to give us much information on the problem of literacy.  However, by adding still another term, we can focus the search once more.  We can decide to do our project on adult literacy, so adding that adjective to the first term searched, we now have found 13 articles.

There is enough of the paragraph in this screen shot for you to be able to tell that here is a good description of how Tarrant County sees the problem of adult literacy, or the lack thereof.