Research Guides: COML 200: Introduction to Comparative Literature: Researching The Name of the Rose (HC): Finding Journal Articles

Journal Indexes for Medieval and Literature Studies

Journal articles and other periodical publications provide scholarly information for you on specific aspects of your topic. Articles are peer-reviewed prior to publication, so that authors can improve their arguments. Given their brief length in comparison to books, articles are useful for identifying new ideas. The following indexes are the best ways for you to identify journal articles related to your research.

Use the buttons in the indexes to locate articles available digitally. For those not owned locally, take the ILL (interlibrary loan article delivery) option.

International Medieval Bibliography Online
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Provides abstracts and citations to articles on medieval subjects in journals, Festschriften, conference proceedings, and collected essays. Covers all aspects of medieval studies within the period 450 to 1500 for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
MLA International Bibliography
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Indexes articles and essays in books related to literature, language, film, theater and folklore. Includes scholarship from 1926 to the present.

Indexes in Related Subject Areas

ATLA Religion Database + ATLA Serials (American Theological Library Association)
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Provides online access to the entire core collection of more than fifty significant scholarly journals in the field of religion. Also provides citation information for journal articles, book reviews and essays for over 600 journals in the fields of religion and theology. Covers 1949-present.

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
Indexes journal articles, book reviews, essays and images concerning women, sexuality and gender in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, from 450 CE to 1500 CE. On the Advanced Search page enter a name or topic in the Keyword box. You can also specify century (15) and geographic area (British Isles) in those search boxes. Currently has over 42, 000 records.

Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
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Indexes articles and essays about the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Women's Studies International
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Provides citations and abstracts of journal articles, books, book chapters, newspapers, dissertations and bulletins, in the core areas of women's studies. Subjects include, feminism, women of color, science, health and technology. Includes different women's studies resources. Covers 1972-present.

Tips for searching within journal databases

When searching in Journal databases, these strategies will get better results:

* Truncation: Shorten search words with an asterisk to get all the forms
erotic* (to include eroticism) prostitut* (to include prostitute, prostitutes and prostitution)

OR: Link synonyms with OR and group them with parentheses
          (homosexual* or same sex* or lesbian* or sodomy)

AND: Combine topics that you want to see together
          marriage* and consent

" " Phrase: Use quotation marks to search for words together in that order
          "cross dress*"

Focus: Choose where the database is searching. It may be set automatically for keyword. You can make the search more precise by looking instead for subjects only or for title words.

Results: Look at the articles retrieved and change search terms for additional results

Tracking Citations Forward in Time

Usually researchers find more sources by looking at the footnotes in an article or book, but these will always be older than the publication you have in hand. Citation indexes like the Web of Science (which includes sections for the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Science) are set up to search for sources cited in the footnotes of journal articles as soon as they become available.

This allows you to find newer articles which cite the books and articles you already know are key for your topic. By relying on connections between authors rather than subject words and by moving forward in time, citation searching can open up new avenues of research.

See this tutorial for more information on cited reference searching.

Web of Science Citation Databases
When you connect, open the Basic Search tab and choose the Cited Reference Search to begin.
Enter the author's name: Last name first, First name initial only with asterisk.
Skip Cited Title box.
Put the publication year in the Cited Year box.
Under Current Limits, open Citation Databases and uncheck Science Citation Index and Conference Proceedings Science.
On the next screen choose the relevant results based on the Cited Work titles.
The results screen shows the newest articles first. Most records include a summary of contents, so that you can determine how relevant they may be for your research.
Google Scholar
To search for cited references in Google Scholar, enter the title of the article or book in quotation marks.
In the results list, check the link Cited by [number] for both books and journal articles which cite the title you have entered.