Finding Information on Communication Theories

Where are you at right now?

Click on your choice.

GETTING STARTED: Places to Browse
This is not a one-step process!

Start off by looking for a succinct definition or description in these 4 reference books (and any others nearby on the shelf that look promising!):

• International Encyclopedia of Communication REFERENCE P 87.5 .I5 1989 (Don't forget to check the Index, v.4.)
• A First Look at Communication Theory REFERENCE P 90 .G725 1997 (This is really a textbook, but you'll find 33 theories abstracted in Appendix A. Use the Index to find relevant chapter text.)
• The Communication Handbook P 87.5 .D46 1986 (Don't be put off by its yellow aged look!)
• Encyclopedia of Human Behavior BF 31 .E5 1994 ( Useful for interpersonal communication topics.)

Nothing there? Want More? Then you need to move downstairs to the MAIN STACKS and begin looking in the indexes of various handbooks and textbooks in the following three call number ranges. Be especially alert to books with the word THEORY or RESEARCH in the title.

It's a long shot, but don't overlook it. There may be a whole book devoted to your theory. Find out by doing a KEYWORD search on Oscar!

SOME SCHOLARLY ARTICLES: Indexing & Abstracting Services
You are doing real research now!

These fall into two categories:

START HERE: The Two Main Indexing/Abstracting Services in the Field of Communication

Communication Abstracts is print publication, so you must actually come into the library to use it and it takes time and patience to use. BUT, it can really pay off. Despite its non-electronic format, this is still THE premier academic indexing tool for communication research. This publication comes out 6 times a year and goes back to 1978.

Below is an example of a citation to a scholarly journal article from this index. The phrases in capital letters are the subject index terms you would find this one under. Notice that ACCOMODATION THEORY is one of those.

LOCATION: On Index Table S in the Reference Room.

TIPS FOR USING IT: You can scan the sections under broad subareas, like interpersonal communication or political communication, and read the abstracts of journal articles and book chapters in that category. You can also use the Subject Index at the back of each individual issue or use the Cumulative Subject Index in issue number 6 at the end of a year's cumulation. Unfortunately, the indexing here is not all that great. You have to be creative about what words you look under. You can get lucky, though, and find your theory as a subject, e.g. Politeness Theory or Accomodation Theory if the theory itself was an important part of or the focus of an entire article. This happens, so it is really worth your while to look your theory up by name in the Subject Index.

ComAbstracts, despite the similarity of name, is not related to Communication Abstracts. It indexes some of the same journals but is much smaller in scope. Many of the abstracts here tend to be more like annotations. However, you can keyword search for articles on theories. If you know the person who originated the theory, search that person's last name as an AUTHOR search, too.

Below is an example of a record from this database. All the records in here are citations to journal articles. Notice the KEYWORDS this article is listed under. One is interaction appearance theory.

LOCATION: It is a one of our electronic databases. Connect to it from one of the database lists on the Library's homepage (Click here to get to C). Off campus, you will be asked for your name and ACCESS card number to get in. Your ACCESS card number is on the BACK of your card, under the barcode.

TIPS FOR USING IT: This is a very small database, so you don't need to use many words! A single keyword, like attribution, may do just fine for your theory. If you know the name of the originator of the theory, you should do an author search for that person in this database as well.

POTENTIAL FURTHER RESOURCES: Multidisciplinary & Related Indexing/Abstracting Resources

Academic Search Elite is a very general electronic periodical index, providing citations from over 4000 differenet journals in all fields back to 1990, generally. For about 1500 of these, the entire fulltext of the article appears. It even has some full text communication journal articles! However, a large portion of the database is popular and commentary/opinion magazines. On the main search screen, you can avoid these by checking the Peer Reviewed box.

LOCATION: Connect to it from one of the database lists on the Library's homepage (Click here to get to A). Off campus, you will be asked for your name and ACCESS card number to get in. Your ACCESS card number is on the BACK of your card, under the barcode.

TIPS FOR USING IT:

• You can do a keyword search in here for your theory in two different ways:

1. If you enter the name of your theory on the Find line and check the Peer Reviewed box, the computer will search for that phrase in the titles, subject headings and very, very brief annotations of journal articles.
2. You may also want to try searching for your theory by checking the search within the fulltext of articles box.

• Think about what your theory is called. If your theory is simply a 2-word phrase, like attribution theory, then you need to use both words. However, if your theory is something more complex and unusual, like cultivation effects theory, try it as a 3-word phrase and also as a 2-word phrase, leaving off theory. Some of your results will be irrelevant, but the good stuff will be in there, too.
• One of the full text sources in Academic Search Elite is, in fact, Communication Abstracts. So, you will retrieve large sets, many pages, even, of abstracts that you then need to scroll through to find the single relevant abstract. I know this sounds bizarre, but, you'll just have to try it and see.

PsycInfo is a possibility, too, as it abstracts many communication journals as well as dissertations, books and book chapters. This database goes all the way back to 1887! It is a very complex one, too. We even have a separate guide to searching it.

LOCATION: Connect to it from one of the database lists on the Library's homepage (Click here to get to P). Off campus, you will be asked for your name and ACCESS card number to get in. Your ACCESS card number is on the BACK of your card, under the barcode.

TIPS FOR USING IT:

• Set your limits right away by clicking on right away and making the following selections:
  1. Document Type: choose Journal-Article.
  2. Publication Year: enter a starting year of 1980 or 1990 and ending 2002.
  3. Language: choose English.
  4. Population and Age Group may or may not be relevant. Look at your choices there.
• Enter the phrase describing your theory on the Find: line. Think about what your theory is called. If your theory is simply a 2-word phrase, like attribution theory, then you need to use both words. However, if your theory is something more complex and unusual, like cultivation effects theory, try it as a 3-word phrase and also as a 2-word phrase, leaving off theory. Some of your results will be irrelevant, but the good stuff will be in there, too.
• If you are retrieving a lot of irrelevant items, go back to the main search screen and click the Subject box above the Find line and redo your search.

FINDING THE FULL TEXT: There is No One-Stop Shopping for Information Yet Doing research takes time.

If you have searched the databases and indexes and abstracts described above, you probably find yourself with some citations (of the non-traffic variety) to articles in journals and, maybe, chapters in books or other interesting things...

Step One is figuring out exactly WHAT IT IS you have: a journal article? a book chapter? something else?

Most commonly you will have a citation to an article in a journal. Here are 3 examples from databases described above:

1. AN: 2001-07357-005
   DT: Journal-Article
   AU: Laczniak,-Russell-N; DeCarlo,-Thomas-E; Ramaswami,-Sridhar-N
   TI: Consumers' responses to negative word-of-mouth communication: An attribution theory perspective.
   PY: 2001
   SO: Journal-of-Consumer-Psychology. 2001 Jul; Vol 11(1): 57-73.
   PB: US: Lawrence Erlbaum.
   IS: 1057-7408
2. Citation:
   Kalbfleisch, Pamela J. (2002). Communication-based theory development: Building theories for communication research. Communication Theory. 12 (1, February), 5-7.
3. 0674
   Harwood, J. Communicative predictors of solidarity in the grandparent-grandchild relationship. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 17(6):743-766, Dec. 2000.

Each, unfortunately, is formatted quite differently. You must figure out what the TITLE OF THE JOURNAL is in each case, making sure not to mistake it for the title of the article. In these examples, the 3 journal titles are:

1. Journal of Consumer Psychology
2. Communication Theory
3. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

You need to look these titles up in two places: Oscar and the Electronic Journals List.

Oscar will tell you if we have a subscription to the journal in print, what years we have, and what the call number is for it. Oscar also will tell you if we have a subscriptiont to the electronic version, what years are available electronically, and provide a link to it.

The Electronic Journals List will tell you which fulltext databases we have that MIGHT include SOME ARTICLES for SOME YEARS of that journal title. Notice all the CAPITALIZED qualifiers here! This list is not fixed or perfect. It is constantly changing and never 100% accurate. These databases are very fluid. But, still, it is handy! If your journal is listed, and the years of coverage match what you need, click on the hotlink to the relevant database. At that point, every database is different. Probably, you will need to do a simple keyword search for the ARTICLE TITLE, being sure to avoid entering any punctuation or little words, like articles/prepositions/conjunctions. Try a couple different searches to be sure.

Book chapters are included in Communication Abstracts and PsycInfo. You also might come across them in references from other articles. They will look something like these:

1. AN: 2000-14425-001SEE NEXT CHAPTER
   DT: Chapter
   AU: Adams,-Carey-H
   TI: Prosocial bias in theories of interpersonal communication competence: Must good communication be nice?
   BK: Shepherd, Gregory J. (Ed); Rothenbuhler, Eric W. (Ed). (2001). Communication and community. (pp. 37-52). . xv, 289 pp.SEE BOOK
   PY: 2001
   IB: 080583138X (hardcover); 0805831398 (paperback)
2. 0741
   Calabrese, A. The means of communication and the discourse on sovereignty. Chambers, S., and Costain, A., eds.
   Deliberation, democracy, and the media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, pp. 65-82.
   $69.00;$24.95

The first one is from PsycInfo, which, happily, actually says that it is a Chapter! The 2nd one, sadly, is the more common layout, which you have to logically deduce from the fact that there are 2 separate titles and 2 sets of authors! One, of course, is the title/author of the chapter, the other of the book as a whole.

Once you figure out what the TITLE OF THE BOOK (see the titles in pink above) is, rather than the chapter, all you have to do is look it up, by TITLE, in Oscar. If you don't find it on Oscar, or you find it is checked out by someone else, simply click on the little button and search for the book in the LINK+ system of libraries. If you find it there, you simply request it according to the instructions on the screen. It will arrive in a couple of days and you can pick it up and check it out right here in Orradre at the Circulation Desk.

Need More Help? Stop by the Reference Desk to get immediate help or call or e-mail me (Gail Gradowski) at 554-5438, ggradowski@scu.edu, for an appointment to get some individual research assistance.

This page created and maintained by Gail Gradowski, Orradre Library, Santa Clara University.
Created July 18, 2002. Last updated July 19, 2002.