Multidisciplinary Databases
These databases are a good place to start looking for articles. JSTOR, Proquest, and Google Scholar let you find articles written by academics in various fields, e.g. history, political science, etc.
You might find some anthropology articles by using these databases. But to ensure that you're finding enough relevant articles in anthropology, you'll also need to use the anthropology-specific databases (at the right).
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JSTORArticles from the top journals in most disciplines. Coverage is through 3 to 5 years ago.
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ProQuest Research LibraryCitations & full-text articles in a variety of disciplines.
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Google ScholarScholarly literature from all broad areas of research. (Look for the FindIt button to get full-text articles from Google Scholar.)
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Abstracts in AnthropologyOnline version of a quarterly publiction, which includes references to journal articles, miscellaneous papers, and books, arranged under sections on archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Also contains cross references and a cross index.
Tracing Citations
You can use citation indexes to count how many times a source has been cited, which is one measure of scholarly influence. You can also use citation indexes to see which books/articles have cited the source in question.
By tracing a source forward and backward through time, you are tracing a thread of the scholarly conversation on this topic.
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Google ScholarOffers a quick (but not always perfectly accurate) measure of how many articles/books have cited the work you're searching for.
Anthropology-specific Databases
The main sources for identifying articles and books in Anthropology and related fields.
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AnthroSourceSearch through articles from the American Anthropological Association journals.
Can't find anything related to your specific topic? Be sure to try synonyms, alternate terms, and searching larger anthropology databases like Anthropology Plus. (AnthroSource is relatively small, so it's not comprehensive.)
Need help refining your search strategy? Ask Sarah (librarian for this course) for help. -
Anthropology PlusProvides abstracts on journal articles, reports, commentaries and obituaries in many fields including social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology; archaeology, ethnology, folklore and interdisciplinary studies. Covers the late 19th century-present.
Anthropology Plus is a large database that lets you search articles from many anthropology journals. One caveat: when you enter search terms into Anthropology Plus, you are only searching through the article titles and specific subject terms that have been applied to each article. (So you are *not* searching abstracts or the full text of the articles.)
Need help figuring out how to use Anthropology Plus? Ask Sarah (librarian for this course). -
Abstracts in AnthropologyOnline version of a quarterly publiction, which includes references to journal articles, miscellaneous papers, and books, arranged under sections on archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Also contains cross references and a cross index.
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ARD: the Anthropology Review DatabaseContains approximately 2600 full-text reviews of books in anthropology. This website looks very outdated, but it contains reliable information and is actually updated.
Book reviews are a great way to preview books and see how they might relate to your topic. (You can also find book reviews using AnthroSource and Anthropology Plus by searching for the book title in double quotes "like this.")
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eHRAF (e-Human Relations Area Files) World CulturesContains ethnographic and other documents describing the cultures of the world. Includes books, journal articles, and dissertations that are compiled into culture profiles. Many documents are in full-text.
Very useful for finding background information about particular cultures around the world. Search for the culture you are interested in and look for a link to a "Cultural Profile." Check the references they cite carefully, though, and make sure to supplement your research with more updated sources if needed.