Movie Reviews: More Movie Reviews

Journals?  
Magazines?
Newspapers?

When doing research, it is useful to know what these different publications are and what kind of information they contain.

• Journal articles are more scholarly or professional while magazine articles tend to be shorter and more general.

• Magazine articles appeal to the general reader and usually have relatively short articles are written in non-technical language are easy to understand

• Newspaper articles, while not usually scholarly or professional, can give you the most current news and some additional facts on your topic.

A library database is both an electronic catalog and the access point to information from published works, such as magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, journals and other resources.

• Library databases provide access to authoritative information sources.

• Library databases provide access to resources across a wide spectrum of topic and subject areas.

• Library databases provide access to many years worth of published information at no cost to students.

• Library databases allow you to to limit or expand your search results by using the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT.

• Library databases give you citation information to help you locate and cite the articles.

• Library databases give you an abstract or summary to tell you what the article is about.

• Most Library databases provide articles in full-text or PDF format.

Articles and Film Reviews  

Magazines and newspapers provide many film reviews and critical analyses of films. Use one of the resources listed below to find articles about the film you are studying. 

Depending on the year the film was released you can use online databases or print indexes.

The following resources will be useful for finding articles about films and the film industry.

Use the following databases to find movie reviews as well as articles about movies and the film industry. See the Database Page for a complete description of the Cerritos College Library online resources.

Remember:

• Always search databases using only the keywords that best describe your topic
• Keywords can be combined into a search string with the operators "and", "or", "not"

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature - Very useful for finding citations to reviews of movies. Look under the subject heading MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS to find the title of the movie. It helps if you know the year the movie was released.

New York Times Index - Look under “Motion pictures, [title]”.

LA Times Index - Look under “Motion pictures, [title]”.

For some research assignments, it is important to use primary sources, instead of or in addition to secondary sources. What’s the difference?

Primary sources are original documents or objects—first-hand information or the raw material. These original documents are often diaries, letters, memoirs, journals, speeches, or interviews. They may also include published pieces such as newspaper or magazine articles, as long as they are written soon after the fact and not as historical accounts. Eye witness accounts, photographs, audio or video recordings, research reports in the natural or social sciences, or original literary or theatrical works are also considered primary sources.

Secondary sources interpret primary sources. Secondary sources include comments on, interpretations of, or discussions about the original material. You can think of secondary sources as second-hand information. Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that evaluate or criticize someone else’s original research.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Sources