Discover New York Research Guide

The following tutorials specifically address common research assignments for Discover New York, and will help you find high-quality information on neighborhoods, landmarks, events, and famous people of New York City. The final section covers citing sources using RefWorks, and also provides general guidelines on avoiding plagiarism. If you need help finding a research topic, refer to DNY Research Topics.

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Finding Books

St. John's University Libraries' Catalog
Use the Libraries' catalog to find books on NYC neighborhoods, boroughs, famous New Yorkers and New York City landmarks.

Accessing the St. John's University Libraries' Catalog [1:10; 233k]
Finding Books on Neighborhoods of NYC [0:51; 340k]
Finding Books on the Boroughs of NYC [1:28; 374k]
Finding Books on Famous People from NYC [0:56; 283k]
Finding Books on Landmarks of NYC [1:05; 408k]
Locating a Book on the Shelf [0:57; 190k]
Exporting References from the Libraries' Catalog to RefWorks [1:51; 728k]

Connect to the St. John's University Libraries' Catalog>

Google Books
Google provides full text access to books that were published before 1928. It is an excellent source for finding information on early New York History.

Finding Books by topic in Google Books [1:10; 1.6MB]
Finding Books by title in Google Books [0:45; 653k]
Searching within full text in Google Books [1:35; 1.3k]
Exporting to RefWorks from Google Books [0:46; 753k]

Connect to Google Books>

Finding Articles

ProQuest Direct
ProQuest Direct is an all-purpose database providing articles from magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals. It is a great source for finding current information about NYC neighborhoods, people, and places.

Accessing ProQuest Direct [0:35; 326k]
Finding Articles about NYC Neighborhoods [0:55; 320k]
Finding Articles about Famous New Yorkers [0:55; 320k]
Finding Articles about NYC Landmarks [1:10; 451k]
Exporting References from ProQuest to RefWorks [0:56, 288k]

Connect to ProQuest Direct >

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
ProQuest Historical Newspapers provides articles from newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor, dating back to the 19th Century. It is an excellent place to find historical primary source material.

Accessing ProQuest Historical Newspapers [1:10; 1.02MB]
Finding Articles about NYC Neighborhoods [2:00; 1.1MB]
Finding Historical Articles about Famous New Yorkers [1:05; 592k]
Finding Articles about NYC Landmarks [1:10; 425k]
Finding Articles about Historical Events [1:01; 877k]
Exporting References from ProQuest to RefWorks [0:56; 288k]

Connect to ProQuest Historical Newspapers >

New York City Department of City Planning

The NYC Department of City Planning provides useful resources such as community district profiles, which provide population and housing data on NYC neighborhoods, and zoning maps, which give quick overviews of the composition of NYC neighborhoods.

Finding Community District Profiles from the DCP [1:01; 937k]
Finding Zoning Maps from the DCP [0:50; 1.07MB]

Connect to New York City Department of City Planning >

Citing Sources using RefWorks

RefWorks provides a quick and easy way to manage your research sources, and to quickly and accurately format citations and works cited lists.

Log-in to RefWorks>