Reference Librarian
🏈 Career Exploration Report
Career Profiles
Occupational Outlook Handbook is the best place to find official career profiles from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Use the second search box "search handbook" to find profiles (credential estimates, salary estimates, working conditions, number of jobs) for sports communication careers like broadcasting, journalism, coaching, and more. Here are sample profiles below:
Internships
Find an intership that could serve as the doorway to your career. An internship posting can count as one of your sources. Search Internships (Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications) and Indeed Sports Media Internships.
Job Postings
Search for a job posting in your career choice. Indeed, College Sports Communicators, and Google Jobs are good places to start looking.
Articles
Search in library databases like Business Source Premier and Access World News
⭐Power Tip: Sharpen your search for articles by using keywords like occupation, vocation, career, and jobs. For example:
Sports broadcasting AND occupation
Sport journalism AND careers
📽️Video Project
Thun Library offers equipment and spaces to help with your video project:
- High quality cameras
- Tripods
- Mounts
- Green screens
- Lighting
Read more on the Technology at Berks Thun Library guide.
What About ChatGPT?
Check out the video from Penn State Libraries below about ethically and effectively using AI in your research.
AI cannot replace library research, but it can help with aspects of the library research process.
Welcome
Welcome! On this page, you'll find tips & resources for each of the projects for Dr. Burk's CAS 182 course. Please reach out to me at dbs21@psu.edu if you'd like to schedule a research consultation or need sources.
Best,
Brett Spencer
Your local neighborhood Penn State Berks librarian
Images from Penn State Berks Flickr showing one venue for sports communication: team huddles.
❓Problem/Solution Presentation and Discussion Forum
• Minimum of 7 sources are required
• Two have to be scholarly, peer-reviewed sources.
• Other sources can be from a variety of sources, but must be deemed to be credible. Use the IF I APPLY tool by the Penn State Libraries to determine if a source is credible.
⭐Power Tip: Checkmark the "peer reviewed" filter in the databases below to limit your search to scholarly, peer-reviewed sources.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowCheckmark the "Peer-Reviewed" box to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on communications & media topics.
- SPORTDiscus with Full Text This link opens in a new windowCheckmark the "Peer-Reviewed" box to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles about sports science topics.
- Sports Business Research Network (SBRnet) This link opens in a new windowGreat place to search for sports marketing topics.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowA special part of Google that finds mainly scholarly articles & books.
Ejournals
- Communication & Sport
A gold mine of articles for our class.
- International Journal of Sport Communication
Sports communication articles from around the world. Useful if you want to compare sport communication in the USA to other countries.
- Journal of Sports Media
Use the second search box ("search within journal") to find articles about sports messaging in television, radio, ads, social media.
- Media, Culture, & Society
Research sports culture as portrayed in the media.
📚Research Paper
• Minimum 7 sources (3 must be scholarly, peer-reviewed--please review the handout below that explains what scholarly articles are)
• Additional sources may include other forms of evidence, but must be deemed credible. Please use the IF I APPLY tool to help you determine if a source is credible.
• Sources can include course readings and scholarship cited by the textbook
• APA or MLA style - This means you must have a works cited (reference page) and you must
use in-text citations to cite paraphrases and direct quotes. If you do not include in-text citations,
your paper will automatically be graded as a 50%.
⭐Power tip: Checkmark the "Peer-reviewed" box in the databases to find at least 3 scholarly, peer-reviewed sources.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowCheckmark the "Peer-Reviewed" box to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on communications & media topics.
- SPORTDiscus with Full Text This link opens in a new windowCheckmark the "Peer-Reviewed" box to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles about sports science topics.
- Business Source Premier This link opens in a new windowCheckmark the "Peer-Reviewed" box to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles about sports marketing and business.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowFinds mainly scholarly articles and book, but please be careful to double check.
Ejournals
- Communication & Sport
A gold mine of articles for our class.
- International Journal of Sport Communication
Sports communication articles from around the world. Useful if you want to compare sport communication in the USA to other countries.
- Journal of Sports Media
Use the second search box ("search within journal") to find articles about sports messaging in television, radio, ads, social media.
- Media, Culture, & Society
Research sports culture as portrayed in the media.
📺 Advertisement Analysis
- You will analyze 5 different advertisements that use sport to sell a product and/or sell a product used for sport, integrate ideas, and draw conclusions about this persuasive practice. Please see the assignment sheet for the full criteria.
- You need to use a minimum of five sources in addition to your five advertisements. Please evaluate your sources carefully. They do not have to be scholarly, but they do have to be trustworthy. Please use the IF I APPLY tool to help you determine if a source trustworthy.
- To find your five sources, please use the resources on the Penn State Libraries' Advertising guide at https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/advertising