Intended to provide journalism students with an introduction to electronic information retrieval, this guide outlines a few of the 500 online services available to them on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus. The concept of the quality versus the quantity of citations retrieved is introduced and emphasized throughout. Services available at Ellis Library are described and two vehicles of information exchange--online services and CD-ROM--are explained. Several reasons for journalism students to utilize database searching are mentioned, including: developing leads; getting background information for interviews; fact-checking after interviews; obtaining additional information; and analyzing trends. Users are advised on: (1) three different ways to search for information, i.e., the pros and cons of grazing, browsing and hunting; (2) designing a search statement (3) using key words; (4) using proximity and Boolean operators; (5) limiting search fields; and (6) interactivity. Appendices include information about when and how to decide whether to conduct a computer or a manual search; a sample search; and a table comparing five of Ellis Library's online and CD-ROM databases. (SD)