Gale’s Opposing Viewpoints in Context (OVIC)and EBSCO’s Points of View Workshop

I Introduction

The Common Core Curriculum wants students to learn how to write argumentative papers. Two of our premium databases are designed to help students locate high quality information on various topics with which students can research topics that have opposing viewpoints. A major aspect of writing argumentative papers is to be able to state the opposing viewpoints’ arguments, so students can argue against the opposition’s stated positions. Gale’s OVIC and EBSCO’s Points of View databases provide students with the research they need to write argumentative (or persuasive) papers.

Gale started publishing opposing viewpoint books in the late 1960s for high school students to use for classroom research projects. Eventually, the company created an online database of their non-fiction books, and started to add other online resources to their opposing viewpoints database. Today, this database is one of the best resources for teachers to use with their students.

The EBSCO company has been around for many decades. They are known for publishing some of the best library reference resources in the business. In the 1980’s they went online with their reference resources. They produce InfoTrac which is used by academic and public libraries around the world. GPHS has a database subscription to several of their databases. One of these databases is Points of View. Points of View was developed to compete with Gale’s OVIC. Today, we are going to explore both databases.

You can access all our Premium Databases at GPHS through the LMC’s Online Resources link on the LMC home page.

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Once you are on the Online Resources page, click on the Premium Databases to open the dropdown menu.

Both the EBSCO and OVIC are in this dropdown menu.

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II Gale’s Opposing Viewpoints in Context Database

We are going to first look at Gale’s OVIC. But before we do I want to point out the video and handout links you can use to teach your students how to use this database. The videos are 2-3 minutes in length and walk students through using OVIC (the search skills in the video can be used for other Gale “in Context” databases). In addition, the link to the OVIC web site is circled; please click on this link when you want to use this database.

If the link takes your students to the sign-in page, then they will need to enter the username ____________________ . This database doesn’t have a password. After logging in OVIC takes your students to the home page where they can access information from several different ways.

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At the top of the page is the standard search window. When you type in a topic in this search window a dropdown menu of topics will appear as you are typing. Topics in bold, italic print (e.g., global warming) let the user know this is a major topic heading in OVIC. Topics in normal print are subjects within major topic headings.

Students can also browse through major section areas from the home page. Each major section lists three topic headings. These links are the top three topics currently being researched by patrons on OVIC.

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To see all the topics under each major topic section click on the View All located to the right of each window.

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When you click on View All the user will get a popup window with all the topics in this section.

To view all the topics in OVIC click on the Browse Issues link on the task bar.

The browse all list is quite long so the example listed below is only a partial list of topics.

Click here will take the user to the advanced search window.

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The Maps link will give the user access to maps on the topics in OVIC.

Today, we will do an example search on global warming.

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Each major topic will have an overview article about the topic. Under this window are different mediums of information about this topic. Each media window lets you know the number of articles on this topic. Examples of media include featured viewpoints (chapters from books), viewpoints (additional chapters from books), statistics, images, reference sources, magazine articles, audio files, newspaper articles, academic journal articles, videos, and websites. In addition, there are links to related topics. As you can see, your students could conduct an entire research project using this database.

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Let’s look at one of the viewpoint articles on global warming.

This book chapter has an abstract of the chapter, questions to think about when reading this chapter, a table of contents within the chapter, as well as the chapter itself. There are various tools students can use when reading this chapter. They can listen to the chapter being read to them. If they want to use this chapter in their paper they can cite the chapter in different citation styles (more on this later). The can email, download and/or print the chapter, as well as save the article, share it with others, or translate it into different languages. Lastly, while reading the chapter they can highlight sections of the chapter and take notes on the chapter.

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One tool your students are going to want to use is the Citation Tools, so they can create a Works Cited or Reference page for their research assignment. When a student clicks on the Citation Tools a popup window appears giving students citations for MLA 8, MLA 7, APA 6, and Chicago 16.

Students can download the citation, or select the citation to copy and paste into their paper. Or, the can Save the citation to their OneDrive or Google Drive. Lastly, if they have a free EasyBib account they can upload the citation to EasyBib, and print out their reference page once they have finished their assignment.

III EBSCO Points of View

Like Gale’s OVIC, EBSCO has several PowerPoint (PPT) presentations for its databases. One of these PowerPoints is about using EBSCO’s Points of View database. This PPT does a pretty good job of explaining how to use this database. Once you are comfortable using this database you can use this PPT to teach your students the basics of this database. The link to the database is located after the Science Reference Center (PPT) link.

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Your students will be sent to the EBSCO login screen. The User ID for this database is _____________________ and the password is _______________________ .The next screen is a listing of all the EBSCO databases we have at GPHS. Click on the Points of View link to access this database.

Like OVIC, Points of View has several different ways to access argumentative topics.

Students can conduct a Basic Search (default search window), an Advanced Search, or search by categories. In addition, Points of View has a section on topics in the news and they will spotlight a specific subject each month. Lastly, they have a Reference Shelf where students and teachers can access Curriculum Standards, Create an Essay Outline, Charts/Graphics on Topics, and See All Research Guides.

Also, like OVIC when you start typing words in the basic search window you will get a dropdown menu of topics while you type. However, there are no highlighted topics in the dropdown telling you the major topics in the database.

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The results for global warming show there are 28 Points of View articles, which include reference sources. Students can also view newspaper articles, magazine articles, radio & TV transcripts, and academic journal articles. On the right side of the screen students will find related images on their topic. Lastly, students may narrow their searches by full text, illustrations, cover story, and by publication date.

When you click on an article, the database gives the reader bibliographic information and an abstract of the article along with the full text. Points of View also allows the patron to listen to an audio recording of the article. Other tools in Points of View are saving the article to a folder for future access, print, e-mail, or save the article, create notes while reading the article, create a link to the article, and share the article with others. There is a Google Classroom link as well, but our District isn’t using this technology tool.

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Lastly, when the student clicks on the Cite link it pops up a menu with several different citation formats. APA format is easily seen in the popup window. However, students will need to scroll down the menu to locate MLA citations. Currently, EBSCO’s databases are still using the MLA, 7th edition tools.

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