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EALC 231: Premodern Japanese Literature (HC)

EALC 231: Premodern Japanese Literature (Glassman) Spring 2022

Tips for Searching Part 1

If you search a catalog or database and receive a large number of results, add a limit or additional keyword in order to retrieve a manageable and relevant number of results to review.  At the same time overly narrow search terms can return too few results.  One way of solving both problems is to use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), which allow you to limit or expand searches depending on your needs.

 

For example, a search for Japan  AND literature will return items that contain both concepts:

 

poetry OR performance returns items that contain either one of the concepts or both:

 

Japan NOT China returns items that talk about Japan but do not mention China:




Phrase searching:

An important strategy to use when searching for phrases ("black and white") or titles:

For example, "The Diary of Lady Murasaki"

will search for those words in that order, finding the book The Diary of Lady Murasaki  Connect from Bryn Mawr College   Connect from Haverford College   Connect from Swarthmore College

 

Truncation and Wildcards:

Most catalogs and databases enable users to search variations of keywords by using truncation (*) or wildcard (e.g., ?, $, !) symbols.

For example, one could search for Japan*  to find Japan and Japanese or politic* to find politician, political, politics, etc.

Wildcard searches are for differences within words: a search for wom?n will return results for woman, women, and womyn.

 

Nested Searching:

When pairing two or more keywords with another keyword, it is important to "nest" the former terms within a larger Boolean search.

Japan* AND history AND womyn AND Heian  will return results for the union of the three subject areas

 Results include:  Objects of Discourse: Memoirs by Women of Heian Japan  Connect from Bryn Mawr College   Connect from Haverford College   Connect from Swarthmore College

 

Tips for Searching Part 2

Subject Headings allow you to find relevant material grouped together including titles that do not use the keywords you may be searching.

 

Finding subject headings

       Look at a book record in Tripod, check the subjects assigned to it, and choose whatever ones are relevant for your research.

Example:   Gender and National Literature: Heian Texts in the Constructions of Japanese Modernity  Connect from Bryn Mawr College   Connect from Haverford College   Connect from Swarthmore College

By Tomiko Yoda. 

                 Subjects:                                                                   

               Japanese literature > Heian period, 794-1185 > Women authors > History and criticism. 
               Feminism and literature > Japan.
               Feminist literary criticism > Japan. 

 

   Subject search Feminist literary criticism > Japan.  =  6 results

 

Refining subject searches

You can combine different concepts into a single subject search for precision.  The results are more focused than a keyword search.

However, all the words have to be terminology used in library subject cataloging.
 

To ensure this, you can use subject headings you have already found.  Another option is to browse in the subject headings for more choices.