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RESEARCH GUIDES

Linguistics Guide for the Major

This guide provides information on print and electronic resources for the study of linguistics.

Tips for Searching

The search box for WorldCat UMD shown here can be found on the UM Libraries' home page: UMD Libraries.

Use WorldCat UMD to search for books, journals, government documents, and other resources owned by the University of Maryland Libraries. WorldCat can help you discover materials that are useful for your research.

The basic search function is a key word search that matches your search terms to words in the catalog records in WorldCat.  Enter key words related to your research to start searching.

A basic search is very broad and may return many results that are not relevant to your research. To refine your search and return more precise results, click on Advanced Search.  The advanced search options allow you to search by keyword, author, title, or subject, as well as to limit your search by fields such as library, year, format, or language. 

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McKeldin Library Floor Plan

More Tips for Searching

When results are displayed by WorldCat, they will appear in four sequential lists:  (1) items held by the University of Maryland Libraries (2) items held by libraries in the University System of Maryland, (3) items held by libraries that are members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), and (4) items held by all other libraries (WorldCat Libraries).

For best results, use the Library of Congress Subject Headings for your topic. Some representative Subject Headings are listed below.

  • Anthropological Linguistics
  • Applied Linguistics
  • Comparative Linguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Discourse Analysis
  • Grammar
  • Historical Linguistics
  • Language and Languages
  • Pragmatics
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Semantics
  • Semiotics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Structural Linguistics

You can search these headings directly by using the "Subjects" box on WorldCat UMD's Advanced Search page.

You can also search these headings directly by using the index label for subjects (su) followed by a colon and the Library of Congress Subject Heading.  FOR EXAMPLE:  su:pragmatics

Once you find a book on your topic, check the "Subjects" section of the catalog record to find more Subject Headings.