This is designed to introduce students to the wonderful world of periodicals, in their great variety, and to how they will appear in different databases. It also begins the work of building their skills at evaluating information sources, determining perspective.

Using ProQuest SIRS Issues Researcher or similar database, groups of students work together to find and read four informative magazine articles representing a variety of opinions on a topic. For each magazine article they write an MLA citation. In an oral presentation of less than three minutes per group, they summarize the controversy without giving their own opinions and explain why they chose the four articles. Students are told to be prepared to answer questions about their topic and why they selected each of the four articles.