Research Guides: LING 399: Senior Thesis Seminar (HC) Fall 2014: Finding Articles

Finding Scholarly Articles

Before conducting your search:

Consider how your argument might be broken down into keywords or phrases.

Compile a list of synonyms for those keywords. What other terms might scholars use to talk about your topic, and how do these terms reflect the type of argument scholars are making? (E.g., insurgency vs. rebellion)

Consider which intersections among your keywords will be useful for searching

Indentify disciplines that are relevant to your research question. Also consider the ways in which your question might reside outside traditional discplines or cut across them.

See the Search Tips tab for additional information about searching Tripod Articles and other databases.

Searching for Articles

Begin your search with the relevant subject-specific or multidisciplinary databases listed below. To search many journal databases at once, use Tripod Articles. To identify subject-specific databases not listed below, use Research Guides.

Once you have found relevant resources, use the button to get full-text copies the articles.

A separate window will open with links either to a digital copy of the article, a locally available print copy, or an Article Delivery request form for ordering material not held by the tri-college libraries. To request items not held locally, simply enter your name and barcode and submit the request.

JSTOR
Access to millions of journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in most academic disciplines. For journals, coverage is from first issue through three to five years ago.
ProQuest Research Library
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
Google Scholar
Search for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports in all disciplines. Linked to Tripod.
Web of Science
Find multidisciplinary scholarly articles (sciences, social sciences, and humanities). Citation searching also allows search for highly cited articles and books.
Project Muse journals
Provides access to journals published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Disciplines covered are humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.

Linguistics & Language Policy

LLBA: Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts
Contains abstracts of the world's literature in linguistics and language-related research, including journal articles, books, book reviews, dissertations and some conference proceedings. Covers all aspects of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology,syntax and semantics. Includes historical, comparative, theoretical and social linguistics and related disciplines such as anthropology, education, and ethnology. Covers 1973-present.

Anthropology

The main sources for identifying articles and books in Anthropology and related fields.

AnthroSource
AnthroSource searches through journals published by the American Anthropological Association. Use the "Advanced Search" (top right) for better results.
Anthropology Plus
Provides 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 includes more articles than AnthroSource, but it's trickier to search. If you find a good article on your topic, you can find other related articles by clicking on the Descriptor(s) links that look relevant.
Abstracts in Anthropology
Online 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.

ARD: the Anthropology Review Database
Despite the dated design, the Anthropology Review Database is an up-to-date resource and an excellent place to find book reviews in anthropology. Contains approximately 2600 full-text reviews of books in anthropology.

eHRAF (e-Human Relations Area Files) World Cultures
Contains 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.

Business, Economics, History & Political Science

Journal of Business Communication
Publishes articles that "address all areas of business communication including but not limited to business composition/technical writing, information systems, international business communication, management communication, and organizational and corporate communication."

EconLit
Provides abstracts to economic journals, books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers. Topics include economic theory and history, monetary theory, labor economics, international, regional and urban economics. Coverage 1969-present.
Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) Index
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, intergovernmental, and private organizations reports. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues. Covers 1915-present.
Historical Abstracts
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, book reviews and dissertations that cover world history from 1450 to the present (excluding the U.S. and Canada which are covered in "America: History and Life"). Includes publications from 1953-present.
Swarthmore has access to the full text.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Provides citations and abstracts of journals in political science and related fields including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. Covers 1975-present.

Education

Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
Comprehensive database of education research, including journal articles, books, reports, and other sources.
Also freely available through www.eric.ed.gov.

Latin American Studies

Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS)
Provides a selective annotated bibliography of scholarly books, journal articles, and other resources dealing with Latin America. Curated by the Library of Congress’ Hispanic Division.
HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Index
Contains citations to scholarly journal articles published in Latin America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and to materials that address this region and U.S. Hispanic topics. Covers political, economic, and social issues. Some citations link to full-text articles. Covers 1970-present.
Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Provides full text, searchable access to a digital collection of primary (and secondary) source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean. The scope ranges from the colonial period to the present and includes monographs, manuscripts, pamphlets, letters, expedition records, journals, periodicals, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, and newspaper accounts.
LAPTOC: Latin American Periodicals Tables of Contents
The Latin American Periodicals Tables of Contents database, or LAPTOC, provides access to the tables of contents of journals published in Latin America and the Caribbean. Consists of 975 academic and research journals published in 29 countries in the region; most of the articles in LAPTOC were published between 1994 and 2009.

Sociology

Sociological Abstracts
Sociological Abstracts is an essential database to search when doing sociology research. Also try ProQuest Sociology (link is below), which is a larger database that only partially overlaps with Sociological Abstracts.
ProQuest Sociology Database
ProQuest Sociology lets you search articles from over 240 academic journals in sociology and social work. This database is larger than Sociological Abstracts and will give you more search results. Be sure to try both Proquest Sociology and Sociological Abstracts.
ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts
This database lets you search for articles in the applied social sciences. If your topic is related to any of the following disciplines, consider trying ASSIA in addition to the main sociology databases.

Applied social sciences include: education, family studies, gerontology, health services, housing, mental health services, nursing, public health, social work, substance abuse