LING 002: Taboo Terms and Slang (SC): Home

This Research Guide will point you to databases, books, primary sources, and other resources that may be useful for your project.

Here are some of the things that I can help you with (other Swarthmore librarians can as well):

• Finding information (scholarly articles and books, primary source documents, multimedia)
• Searching specific databases
• Improving your search skills
• Citing sources and creating a bibliography
• Organizing your research (including using Zotero or Endnote)

1. Get organized at the start (and save yourself headaches later)
   Consider choosing an organizational system for your research and notes and sticking with it for the duration of your project.  No one wants to dig around their room at 2 AM looking for an article, or frantically search their computer for a PDF.  A tool like Zotero can help you stay organized by keeping research articles, citations, and notes all in one place.  (see the Get Organized section of this guide)
    
2. Use relevant bibliographies.
   Once you have found a good article or book on your topic, look at the references that author cites.  You'll probably find many sources that you can use.
   
   
3. Need background info? Try reference books.
   Print and online reference works can give you the basic theoretical context for your topic, and enable you to identify key participants, dates, events, and concepts.
   
   To find print and online reference materials, search for your topic in Tripod. Click on the "Books and More" results, then narrow the list to "Swarthmore Reference." 
   
   You can also browse the reference collection (McCabe, first floor) in the appropriate call number range--P for Linguistics. 
   
   
4. See how often a particular article or author has been cited
   Citations provide one clue to an article or author's level of influence on their field. Use Web of Science's Social Sciences Citation Index to trace citations--just click on Cited Reference Search and search by author or title to find out how extensively someone/something has been cited.
   
   
5. Interlibrary loan can take some time - place your book requests soon.
   Find out more about Interlibrary Loan and place requests here.