Research Guides: AASP 297: Research Methods in African American Studies: Database &amp; Journal Finder

Database Search Techniques

Why Use Databases?

Databases are subscription resources that bring articles from a variety of magazines and/or journals into one place with a sophisticated search engine. Many of the databases allow you to read the entire article online. All databases that UMD Libraries subscribe to can be accessed through Database Finder.

Library Databases vs Search Engines

Click on the video below to watch a tutorial on the differences between a subscription-based library database and a free search engine. It explains when and how to use each. (Access video by clicking the image).

Google Scholar is a special case, a search engine that actually allows you connect to with the library databases. This is great for doing a quick, general search for articles on your topic. For more refined searches, please use the databases listed below on this page. The video below explains how to connect your Google Scholar account to your UMD Libraries account:

For more information on how to do more effective searches, please refer to the tabs above:

How to Search
Finding Background Information
Develop a Search Strategy
Searching Tips

Watch these short video tutorials to learn how to search the databases.

EBSCO:

ProQuest:

You can also search multiple databases at once!

EBSCOhost and ProQuest are platforms that house approximately 60 to 75 databases. In order to get the best search results you should select the databases you need (i.e. if your subject is "education" you would limit your search to education databases) . To do this go to the top of the database homepage and look for the terms All databases, Change databases, or Choose databases. See examples and video tutorial below.

For ProQuest:

For EBSCOhost:

What if there is no full text?

Don't panic! You have several options:

1st Option:
Use journal finder to search for the journal.
2nd Option: Request article from another library
This tutorial will assist you in using Inter Library Loan to request the article.

Finding Background Information

Start your research by exploring the following resources:


UMD Discover	Academic Search Complete

G oogle Scholar	UMD Libraries Databases

Tips for Organizing Your Research

Visit our Research Commons' Site for creative and practical suggestions.

Searching Strategies

Choosing your search topic can be a difficult process - it is important to pick a topic that is not so narrow that little if anything has been written about it, yet it is also important to pick a topic that is not so broad that there is too much information and it is impossible to develop a coherent and focused thesis.

Let's say that ....

Steps:

1. Divide your research question into concepts and connect them with the Boolean operator AND.

smoking AND youth

2. Brainstorm some synonyms and connect them with the Boolean operator OR:

smoking OR tobacco OR “pipe smoking”, etc.
Specific communities? (ex. minority, African-American, immigrants, low-income, children, etc.)
Look up ‘smoking’ in MeSH.

3. Your final search strategy could look like:

smoking AND (youth OR teens OR teenagers) AND minority NOT Canada

A brief video tutorial on how Boolean operators work.

Below you will find more tips on searching techniques that can be used to help refine your searches.

Searching techniques to limit or expand your results

Boolean search	AND OR NOT	Find all the words Find any of the words Find documents which have the first word, but not the second word	internet AND education internet OR intranet internet NOT html
Phrase search	"..."	Search for an exact phrase by using quotes around the phrase	"environmental health"
Truncation	*	Find all forms of a word - the asterisk *is used as a right-handed truncation character only.	Searching for econom* will find "economy", "economics", "economical", etc.
Wildcard	?	Replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word. ? cannot be used to begin a word.	Searching for wom?n will find "woman" and "women."

Keywords/synonyms

It is important to realize that if you search a database with a certain word or phrase and you don't retrieve results to your liking, it doesn't mean that there are no other articles in that database on your topic. It may mean that you need to try other related words in your search, such as synonyms. For example, try automobile or auto instead of car.

Magazines & Newspapers	Written for a general audience Typically what you would see in a bookstore or on a magazine stand Intended to inform and/or entertain Popular journals do not undergo 'peer-review' process Can be found in many of the article databases to which the University of Maryland subscribes Examples: Time, Sports Illustrated, Scientific American, etc.
Scholarly Journals	Written by/for experts in a given field Usually these are available through academic libraries or anywhere there is a need for the highly specialized information contained within these publications Intended to inform Undergo 'peer-review' process prior to publication (see below) To focus on these resources when searching UM article databases, be sure to limit your search to 'scholarly' or 'peer-reviewed' literature Examples: American Journal of Public Health, Genetic Epidemiology,Family and Community Health, etc.
Books	Overview, broader in scope Can be out-of-date, so be sure to check the publication date
Open web	Large variety in terms of quality As opposed to subscription-based internet resources such as article databases and e-journals that the UMCP libraries subscribe to.

Criteria for evaluating resources:

Accuracy
- How does this resource match up with others you've seen?
- Do the results seem plausible?
Authority
- Who created it?
- What are the qualifications of the creator?
- Where is the information hosted? (see Web Domains below)
Content
- Is this written in a ‘professional’ manner?
- Is it sloppy?
- What kind of evidence does the creator use to support what they are saying?
Purpose
- Is this written in an objective, detached way?
- Is this someone’s personal opinion?
- Who is the intended audience?
Timeliness
- When was this produced?
- If a website, when was this updated last?
- How old are the works that are foot-noted/cited?

Some examples:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - a reliable source for information from
Pet Therapy - the author is unknown, not updated since 2007

Web Domains

Anyone can create a Web site. It is important to find out who is the author and what are the author's qualifications or expertise in order to determine the credibility and reliability of the information.

.com	Produced by a commercial enterprise, trying to sell something or funded by advertisers
.edu	From an educational institution (college, high school, museum)
.net	Network of computers
.mil	A military site
.gov	Produced by the government
.org	Produced by a nonprofit organization
.uk, .cn, .us, etc.	A country-sponsored site
.md.us	A web site from the state of Maryland

Databases

Academic Search Ultimate
Multi-disciplinary database providing information for nearly every area of academic study. Includes an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals, as well as additional journals, magazines, newspapers and books. Multidisciplinary subjects including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language & linguistics, arts & literature, medicine, ethnic studies. 1965- present.
African American Newspapers
This collection of African-American newspapers contains information about the cultural life and history during the 1800s, and contains first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day pertaining to African Americans.
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998
Digitized and fully searchable collections of more than 270 African American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries.
America: History & Life with Full-Text
Core American history database now includes unique full-text coverage of nearly 200 journals and 100 books. Information on articles, books, book reviews, and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Covers more than 2000 international worldwide. All aspects of historical research. Time span: 1964-present.
Black Abolitionist papers, 1830-1865
Online full-text primary source collection is the first to comprehensively detail the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.
Black Thought and Culture
Contains full text and bibliographic information about the black community and its leaders, from the 1700's to present times. Includes monographs, essays, articles, speeches, interviews, and other publications. Contains many never before published materials. Most significant, for the first time in electronic format, newspaper articles from the Black Panther Party publication is made available.
CQ Researcher
Full-text database that provides comprehensive analysis of each topic, including history and background information, relevant pro & con arguments, current status, bibliographies, contact information, and outlooks on upcoming "hot topics" in current events. Covers news topics in a wide range of subject fields, from social issues to the environment, health, education, politics, and science and technology. Online access to issues dating back to 1923
Ethnic NewsWatch
Full-text bilingual (English/Spanish) database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press. 1990 to the present. Multidisciplinary - news, culture, and history.
Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text
Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. The database will provide cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 300 publications (and selected coverage of 301), as well as full text for more than 90 journals.

Films@UM
Films@UM consists of over 800 digital videos on a wide variety of subjects which can be used in the classroom or independently. These films are available to University of Maryland (College Park) students, faculty, and staff for viewing, either from one's computer or classroom on campus, or at home via a virtual private network (VPN). Spanning documentaries, public television programming, taped performances, and feature films.

Films on Demand Master Academic Collection
Streaming video service of almost 12,000 full length videos of high-quality educational titles. Subject sets featured are: business & economics, humanities & social sciences, science & mathematics, health & medicine. This collection also includes thousands of video clips and a collection of archival films & newsreels. Special features allow users the ability to organize and bookmark clips, create and share playlists; most videos available with closed-captioning and interactive transcripts; may be viewed through most mobile devices.
Historical Abstracts with Full-Text
Core international history database now includes unique full-text coverage of nearly 200 journals and 100 books. It also provides indexing for over 1700 journals from 1964 to the present.
Historical Black Newspapers
Once in ProQuest click on Databases link at top; click on Select all to de-select the entire list of databases; scroll down to ProQquest Historical Newspapers and select the titles of interest; return to top and click on Use selected databases.

Online full-text of: Chicago Defender (1909-1975); New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993); Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002); Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005); Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003); Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991); Norfolk Journal & Guide (1921-2003); Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001).
Black Studies Periodicals
Includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from over 150 scholarly and popular journals, newspapers and newsletters from the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean. Indexing 1902 to present, full-text coverage of 40 core Black Studies periodicals 1998 to present. Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary - spanning cultural, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of vital importance to the Black Studies discipline.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Fulltext database covering social issues with topic overviews and pro/con viewpoints. Sources include news, journal articles, magazines, media, maps, websites and statistics.
Oxford African American Studies Center
A full-text database that provides comprehensive coverage of the African American experience. Updated quarterly, the online collection contains scholarly articles, biographies, commentaries, primary sources, subject entries, film clips, images, maps, charts, tables, web sites, and timelines. The core content of the electronic file consists of reference works including Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. Additional reference titles include the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature; Oxford Companion to Black British History; and selected articles from other major reference titles.
Project Muse
Full text of recent issues of over 240 journals from 40 scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literary studies, history, the visual & performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many other arts and humanities and social science disciplines. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many other arts and humanities and social science disciplines. Time span: Varies by journal. Some back to 1993, the majority from 1997 to the present.
Race Relations Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including Race, Ethnicity & Education and Ethnic & Racial Studies. This resource does not contain ISBNs.
JSTOR
Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published from volume 1, issue 1. Please note, most journals have a “moving wall” (time lag) of three to five years between the most current issue published and content available on JSTOR. Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
SocIndex with Full Text
The index features more than 1,300,000 records with subject headings from a 15,600 term sociology-specific thesaurus designed by expert lexicographers. This product also contains informative abstracts for more than 620 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895. In addition, this file provides data mined from more than 500 "priority" coverage journals as well as over 1,390 "selective" coverage journals. Further, extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources is included. Contains full text for 242 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, and 72 "priority" coverage journals. This database also includes full text for 547 books and monographs, and full text for 6,711 conference papers.