Need Help?
Finding Publicly Available & Free Resources
Many of the resources collected on this guide require an affiliation with URI or use of a public computer within the URI Libraries. You can always check access restrictions for recommended resources by looking at the icon next to each link. The little green "A" icon to identifies resources that are accessible.
- Free Resource: All Can Access
- URI Only (must be a URI student, faculty, or staff member to access)
You can also check out the recommendations on this page for additional resources you can access without a logon restriction!
To browse for open access, freely available scholarly material on your topic, check out the Directory of Open Access Journals linked below!
- Directory of Open Access JournalsAn index of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals covering a range of disciplines.
Online Resources
The following book recommendations are Open Educational Resources (OERs), meaning that they are teaching and learning materials that are free to access and licensed for reuse and adaptation.
- Introduction to CommunicationIntroduction to the field of Communications, introducing the basic concepts and theories of the discipline.
- Communication in the Real WorldIntroductory text to Communications studies basic concepts and its applications to the world around us.
- Communication TheoryIntroduction to the theories of Communication for students.
Free resources for speech writing and rhetoric topics in communications.
- American RhetoricWebsite includes full text, audio and video of hundreds of political speeches.
- Bartlett's Familiar QuotationsOnline version of the 10th edition of Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett, published in 1919. “A collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature.”
- The American Presidency ProjectSpeeches from American presidents Annual Messages to Congress on the State of the Union (Washington 1790 - the present)
- Rhetoric Society of AmericaWebsite for the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA), an organization made up of scholars and teachers in various disciplines interested in the art of effective communication.
Free resources in public policy for background information on communications related topics.
- Poynter Institute for Media StudiesJournalism non-profit focused on media literacy and fact-checking.
- Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications Commission of the United States government