Research Guides: HUMA 500: Critical Methods in the Humanities (UNH Durham): Find Articles

Library Search Box

Databases to Consider

Depending on your specific topic, one of these specialized databases may be helpful. For more online resources, check out the complete Database List.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources in a wide range of disciplines. Funded in part by the University of New Hampshire Graduate School. Coverage is not designed for current material, thus it does not cover information from the most recent 2 to 5 years.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide.
Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts from books and journals of philosophy and related fields. Covers ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysic logic as well as material on the philosophy of law, religion, science, history, education, and language. Dates of coverage: 1940-current
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Contains bibliographic records of scholarly research from journals, books and book chapters, proceedings, and other formats. Covers research in literature, literary theory and criticism, language, dramatic arts, linguistics, and folklore.
Religious and Theological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides objective summaries of articles appearing in scholarly journals in the fields of Religion and Theology. Listing a wide variety of periodical literature, including Christian, Jewish, and other World religions. Provides English language abstracts of articles in English, Hebrew, Afrikaans, and major European languages.
Art Index This link opens in a new window
Index of articles from art periodicals published throughout the world. Source documents also include yearbooks, museum bulletins and reproductions of art works. Dates of coverage: 1984-current

Google Scholar

Keyword searching across citations, abstracts and full text of articles (even if the full text isn't available to you).

Advantages:

identify relevant articles, especially if your search is pretty specific.
useful for exploratory purposes or when you're "covering all the bases"

Disadvantages:

hard to organize or sort in useful ways
unable to search by subject or limit by anything other than time

Enhance efficiency by adjusting these Google Scholar settings so that

Library Links shows library access links to UNH (so you have quicker access to full text that UNH is subscribing to)

Connect to

Google Scholar

Getting Articles

Click on the Check for UNH Full Text icon in the database record to see how to get a copy of the article: whether online, in print or from another library.

If the UNH Library doesn't have the article you want, request it through Interlibrary Loan.

Approaches to Searching and Finding Related Articles

Use 2 or 3 significant words or terms from your research topic

Develop synonyms and alternative terms

Example: teens or youth or adolescents

Try a broader concept if a specific term doesn't retrieve enough results

instead of brothers, try siblings

Try a more specific aspect or element if you get too many results with a very broad concept

instead of sports, search a specific sport or category such as baseball or water sports

Use the connector "and" to retrieve records with all the keywords you list to focus and narrow your results

skiing and New England

Use the connector "or" indicate that any one of the terms listed needs to be in the results shown; this usually increases the number of relevant results

audience or attendees

Use quotation marks to indicate a phrase

"flow theory"

Use an asterisk * to pick up words with the same stem but different endings

therap* returns therapy, therapeutic, therapists

Look for new words or terms to search when reviewing your results or reading the full-text article.

Some specialized databases allow you to limit your search in other useful ways: educational level, age, population group, research methodology, language, etc.

Limiter options vary by database:

check the advanced search screen
view the limiters to the left or right on the search results page.

Make connections through ideas and concepts rather than specific words

Look at the reference list at the end of a relevant scholarly article you found. This may lead you to earlier articles related to your topic. Search the UNH Library catalog by the name of the journal to see if we have the article online or in print.

Check "Times Cited" links, if available, in databases such as PsycINFO or Biological Abstracts to identify some newer articles citing the article in the database record. This may lead to related relevant articles.

Use Web of Science to follow citations from published articles to identify older and newer related articles across many disciplinary fields in the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities.

Searching by the subjects assigned to articles helps

identify articles in which the subject is a main focus and not just not just a passing reference
pull together results on same concept even if author uses different terms in title or abstract
- the subject "capital punishment" will retrieve articles using the term "death penalty" as well as those using "capital punishment"
when a keyword may have multiple meanings or a more general meaning
- the subject "flow (conscious state)" will get more relevant results than just searching the keyword "flow"

Look at the subject terms in records for articles that fit your topic closely and search those subjects for more articles

Use the thesaurus available in some databases to see if your keywords are subjects or if alternative terms are used

PsycINFO uses "Military Families" as a subject but not "Military Wives"

What else have the author(s) published on this topic? Search their names in the relevant database or look for their CV (curriculum vita) online.

HUMA 500: Critical Methods in the Humanities (UNH Durham)

For More Help

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Library Search Box

Databases to Consider

Google Scholar

Getting Articles

Approaches to Searching and Finding Related Articles