Answered By: Laura Marek
Last Updated: Dec 06, 2023     Views: 681

This F.A.Q. entry will review two different ways to find articles from newspaper opinion pages.

Option A: Locate Opinion/Editorial articles using ProQuest Central in the Library

To find an opinion piece written in a newspaper or other publication where the article is clearly marked as opinion or commentary (for example, something from the Opinion sections of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post), our best source for this is ProQuest Central, which contains several databases with hundreds of newspapers. 

You can find ProQuest Central, and any other database, by visiting the All Databases page on the Library homepage.  
 
Our strategy will be to conduct a search on a topic, then use the available filters to narrow the results list down to just opinion articles.  
 
Once you're in ProQuest Central, you'll see a large blank search box you can type terms into.  Type in something related to your topic to see a list of results that match your search terms.
 
 
On the results list, ProQuest offers three tools handy for limiting your results list.  These options are to the right side of any results list.  First, you can limit by date - you'll see a slider you can use to get rid of older articles:
 

Second, you can limit by the type of document by using the Document Type option- you can limit to Editorials for example, which will be really helpful when trying to find just opinion pieces.  Click on the heading Document Type, then click More Options.

After that, click on Editorial.  You can also add Commentary for more articles, but Editorials are more likely to be opinion pieces. 

 

 

If you're interested in just opinion pieces from a particular newspaper, you can filter the results list to only articles from one publication.  To do this, use the options under Publication Title.

 

Alternative ProQuest strategy:

One last thing you could do: As an alternative within ProQuest, click Advanced Search at the top of nearly any page in ProQuest.  Once there, add words like Op-Ed, Opinion, or Editorial to your search and use the Document Title -- TI setting instead of Anywhere, like in this example search:

 

 

Option B: Locate the Opinion/Editorials section of a newspaper's website

You could also search Google for an opinion page. For example, here is the Washington Post's opinions page. It was found by searching in Google for Washington Post opinion page

 
At the bottom of the Google results page, there are suggestions for other searches you could try that include other newspapers.  Just click on one that appeals to you to see the results.

 

However, you may be limited to more recent issues or hit a paywall, and searching by topic within just opinion articles varies from newspaper website to website.  

If you still have trouble finding an opinion article about your topic, please contact the Library team.

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