Research Guides: HLS 820 Terrorism and Intelligence Research Guide: Homeland Security Research Tutorials and Tips

EKU Libraries Specific Help

Help with International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center

The library subscription database International Security and Counter Terrorism is a great place to start for most homeland security related research topics.

When searching your topics, you will find a variety of types of sources including:

peer-reviewed and scholarly articles not only from homeland security focused journals bu also related and multidisciplinary journals
government publications such as GAO reports and Congressional Research Reports
professional trade journals

These are just some of the types of sources you will find on your research topics!

Before you begin your search in the International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center, here are a few tips that should help you get started:

Start simple - try starting with just one or two keys to search on the broadest aspects of your research topic.
Scroll through your results - what are you noticing? Certain terms the sources in the database seem to use that you should use? Common issues? Are there sources on aspects of the topic you are not interested in?
Refine and add more keywords - with your new knowledge, add additional keywords into your search to refine it and make it more specific.
Geographic - sometimes your topics are focusing on certain geographic regions or how a certain issue is affecting the United States. Because International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center looks at global issues, sometimes you may need to add in an additional keyword to narrow your results to just that geographic region. This is as simple as entering "United States," for example, into one of the search boxes.