Resource of the Month - Points of View Reference Center

News item published on: 2022-03-01 10:05:00

Each month, University Libraries highlights a resource from its collections. This month the featured item is the research database - Points of View Reference Center.

Points of View Reference Center is a full-text database that acquaints users with views and discussion points on a wide variety of current topics. This database can be used to guide scholarly debate, develop academic arguments, and compose persuasive papers or speeches. Points of View Reference Center includes topic overview articles, essays, academic journal articles, popular media articles from periodicals and newspapers, radio and TV news transcripts, primary source documents, images, and videos.

In addition to supporting students in the development of their academic arguments, this database is also useful to instructors for the purpose of introducing students to scholarly debate or the the discussions that are taking place about a particular topic, as well as for teaching critical thinking skills.

Points of View Refence Center provides over 100 browsable topics, which include an overview and history of the topic, terminology for understanding the discussion, and a bibliography of additional sources. As shown in the screen capture below, the database also supplies both a point and counterpoint article which provide opposing views on the topic for further reading.