Finding Articles
From Ashley Lierman
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Library instruction for PHIL 09211 on how to find articles in the library's databases.
Transcript follows below:
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Now that we’ve looked at how to find books, let’s move on to how to find journal articles. Articles are generally stored in databases, which are a sort of a repository for information and a search tool all in one. All of our databases can be found in the Database Finder on the library website.
By default, the databases are listed in alphabetical order. That’s great when you know exactly what you want, but the library has a lot of databases, and you might need to narrow things down. The menu in the upper left that says All Subjects will let you choose a subject area and see only databases that are in that subject area. Click the menu, and select Philosophy from the list.
Now we can see a list of databases recommended for philosophy, starting with this box of “Best Bets” at the top. For this assignment, I’m going to suggest a couple of these databases, and a couple others, too. Our resources relevant to the history of philosophy are a bit spread out among different databases, so it will help to search more than one for your topic. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut we can use to search in several of them at once, so let’s look at that first.
Let’s start by going to this database: Philosopher’s Index with Full Text. This is probably our primary philosophy-focused database. This may look familiar, as we have a number of databases that share the same search screen, just with different contents. The cool thing, though, is that you can search across multiple databases that share this search screen at the same time. Click the link that says Choose Databases above the main search boxes. You’ll see a list of all of the databases that use this search interface: Philosopher’s Index is checked, and you can check more to add them to your search. I’d recommend also checking Academic Search Complete and also Humanities Source: both of these cover a number of different subjects, but have significant content about the history of philosophy you might not find searching only Philosopher’s Index. Then click OK, and you’ll be searching across all three at once.
Now you can enter your search terms – we’ll talk more about choosing the right words in the next video – and search. In the results screen, like on Amazon and other sites, you have a number of options down the left side you can use to refine your results. You can choose only scholarly peer-reviewed articles, and there are other types in these databases, so if you’re specifically looking for scholarly journal articles, that’s a good idea. You can also use the slider to limit to a certain date range, like if you don’t want older articles. It’s also worth noting that you can see at the bottom here how many of your results are coming from each database.
You’ll probably find some results in these three databases, but it’s always a good idea to expand your search if you want to be thorough. Also in the Database Finder, there are a couple of other good options that actually aren’t on the Philosophy page. One of them is JSTOR, which you can either find under J – make sure to click this Clear Filters button first - or you can also see it in this list of Popular Databases on the right-hand side of this screen. It covers a number of subjects, but it has a lot of content related to philosophy. The other one is ProQuest Central, which you can of course find under P. This is a huge database that covers tons of subjects, and it can be tricky to search since it tends to give an overwhelming number of results, not all of which are always relevant. It does have a lot of information, though, and it can be a good extra thing to check.
Transcript follows below:
-----
Now that we’ve looked at how to find books, let’s move on to how to find journal articles. Articles are generally stored in databases, which are a sort of a repository for information and a search tool all in one. All of our databases can be found in the Database Finder on the library website.
By default, the databases are listed in alphabetical order. That’s great when you know exactly what you want, but the library has a lot of databases, and you might need to narrow things down. The menu in the upper left that says All Subjects will let you choose a subject area and see only databases that are in that subject area. Click the menu, and select Philosophy from the list.
Now we can see a list of databases recommended for philosophy, starting with this box of “Best Bets” at the top. For this assignment, I’m going to suggest a couple of these databases, and a couple others, too. Our resources relevant to the history of philosophy are a bit spread out among different databases, so it will help to search more than one for your topic. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut we can use to search in several of them at once, so let’s look at that first.
Let’s start by going to this database: Philosopher’s Index with Full Text. This is probably our primary philosophy-focused database. This may look familiar, as we have a number of databases that share the same search screen, just with different contents. The cool thing, though, is that you can search across multiple databases that share this search screen at the same time. Click the link that says Choose Databases above the main search boxes. You’ll see a list of all of the databases that use this search interface: Philosopher’s Index is checked, and you can check more to add them to your search. I’d recommend also checking Academic Search Complete and also Humanities Source: both of these cover a number of different subjects, but have significant content about the history of philosophy you might not find searching only Philosopher’s Index. Then click OK, and you’ll be searching across all three at once.
Now you can enter your search terms – we’ll talk more about choosing the right words in the next video – and search. In the results screen, like on Amazon and other sites, you have a number of options down the left side you can use to refine your results. You can choose only scholarly peer-reviewed articles, and there are other types in these databases, so if you’re specifically looking for scholarly journal articles, that’s a good idea. You can also use the slider to limit to a certain date range, like if you don’t want older articles. It’s also worth noting that you can see at the bottom here how many of your results are coming from each database.
You’ll probably find some results in these three databases, but it’s always a good idea to expand your search if you want to be thorough. Also in the Database Finder, there are a couple of other good options that actually aren’t on the Philosophy page. One of them is JSTOR, which you can either find under J – make sure to click this Clear Filters button first - or you can also see it in this list of Popular Databases on the right-hand side of this screen. It covers a number of subjects, but it has a lot of content related to philosophy. The other one is ProQuest Central, which you can of course find under P. This is a huge database that covers tons of subjects, and it can be tricky to search since it tends to give an overwhelming number of results, not all of which are always relevant. It does have a lot of information, though, and it can be a good extra thing to check.
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