Here are some specialized library databases and publications that provide overviews of social issues:

CQ Researcher allows you to browse or search for your topic and provides 12,000-word reports on each covered topic.  Areas covered include health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, eduation, the environment, and the economy.  You can explore your topic for background information or check out the Pro/Con section to see what controversial issues are related to your topic.

Issues and Controversies allows you to search and browse for your topics amid the over 250 controversial topics covered.  Issue coverage includes opposing perspectives on each controversial topic.  Articles are supplemented with chronologies, illustrations, maps, tables, sidebars, contact information, and bibliographies including primary source documents and news editorials.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context covers today's hottest social issues. Provides issue overviews, viewpoint essays, and links to related academic journal articles, statistics, primary sources, audio, news articles, reference articles, videos, magazine articles, biographies, and websites.

Newspaper stories can give you a snapshot in time on an issue. Consider how the social issue is framed by the news article: how is the issue defined? What are presented as the causes and solutions? Is the article clearly stated as an Opinion piece?

Search engines for news content:

Library Articles Search - U-M Library search

Tip! Limit the Format to Newspaper article or Magazine article.

• You may also want to Sort by date

Allsides provides a "balanced search" of the news by categorizing news sources based on perceived partisan bias.

ProQuest News and Current Events allows you to simultaneously search mainstream news, ethnic news, alternative press news, and historical news.

TIP! Switch the default sort from Relevance to Most Recent First

Google News will limit your search results to news articles.