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About this Guide
A guide to research for Alex Dubilet's class dealing with 19th and 20th century theories of the body in philosophical discourse, fiction, visual cultures, John Berger's Ways of Seeing, and feminist theory.
Off-campus Access to Library Resources
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Campus Library Map
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Is it a scholarly source?
Your instructor wants you to use scholarly [or 'peer reviewed'] sources. What does she mean?
Authoritative- written by a recognized expert in the field. How do you know? The PhD is one sign; employment by a university is another.
Peer reviewed- before publishing, the article was vetted by other scholars in the field. How do you know? Try searching the journal title in Google and read the publisher's blurb.
Audience- written for scholars and experts in the field. How do you know? The level of the language is usually a give away. It will be technical and formal.
Includes a bibliography and/or footnotes with citations of sources used.
Scholarship is always changing. Try to find the most recent scholarly sources you can.
Has been cited by other scholars. This can take time, so the newest articles might not be heavily cited yet. How do you know? Try searching the article citation in Google Scholar, which indicates the number of citations in Google Scholar [not comprehensive however]
Proves the point with sufficient evidence, rather than opinion statements.
1. State your problem as a question as succinctly as possible.
2. 'Brain dump': Write down what you already know about your topic, including
Names of people, organizations, companies, time period you are interested in, places of interest [countries, regions, cities], conceptual terms...
3. Decide what disciplinary methodologies you plan to use: e.g., sociology, political science, literature, psychology...
4. Fill in the gaps in your knowlege: get background information from specialized encyclopedias or other secondary sources. Wikipedia can sometimes be good here, or Google News.
5. Select the best places/ databases to find information on your topic from the Library'slist of databases by subject. Or use a catalog like Oskicat or Melvyl to search for books and other resources.
6. Use nouns from your brain dump as search terms.
7. Evaluate what you find. Change search terms to get closer to what you really want.
8. Refine Your Search Words - Using the information you have gathered, determine if your research words should be narrower or broader. You may need to search basic resources again using your new, focused topics and keywords.
Literary Criticism and Resources
MLA International Bibliography Scholarly articles on literary topics. Use UC-eLinks button to get to the articles themselves.
Literature Resource Center (LRC) Includes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers. Scope is international. Full text.
Project MUSE Several hundred scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. Topics include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics and many others.
JSTOR Easy to use, full text, multi-disciplinary scholarly article database. Note: the most recent 3-5 years of the journals are usually not available through JSTOR.
Academic Search Complete A multi-disciplinary database that includes both scholarly and popular articles. Most articles have pdfs.
Literature Online Includes more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 131 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. Includes reference works on literary criticism and biographical information.
Where's the PDF?
Many article databases contain information about articles (citations or abstracts), not the entire text of the article. Once you've used an article database to find articles on your topic, you may need to use this button: in order to locate and read the full text of the article. The UC-eLinks button appears in nearly all the databases available from the UCB Library website.
UC-eLinks will link you to the online full text of an article if UCB has paid for online access; otherwise, UC-eLinks will help you locate a print copy on the shelf in the library. If UCB doesn't own the article in print or online format, UC-eLinks can also help you order a copy from another library.
For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 4 min.)
You can also set up UC-eLinks to work with Google Scholar. For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 2 min.)
Searching Library Catalogs
Use OskiCat to locate materials related to your topic, including books, government publications, and audio and video recordings, in the libraries of UC Berkeley. OskiCat will show you the location and availability of the items that we own.
Use Melvyl to locate materials related to your topic located at other campuses in the UC system, or worldwide. You can use the Request button to request an item from another library, if we don't own it.
Using Melvyl (but not OskiCat) you can find articles as well as books, easily format a citation for copying into a bibliography, and see images of book covers, when available. Melvyl will also show you the location and availablity of items that we own.
Melvyl has changed as of January 2012, and now includes many more articles. Detailed Melvyl help
Art Research
Check out Google Art Project, which gives you virtual tours of some of the world's major art museums, including close ups of major art works.
ARTstor A repository of more than 1 million digital images. Includes The Mellon International Dunhuang Archive; Native American Art and Culture from the Smithsonian; and the Hartill Archive of Architecture and Allied Arts.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Web of Knowledge) Indexes over 1,000 of the leading arts and humanities journals, and provides searching of footnoted citations. Under Current Limits, specify Arts and Humanities Citation Index.
Art Full Text Indexes over 300 international publications, including journals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, film reviews, bibliographies, conference reports, review articles, interviews and exhibition listings, in a variety of languages.
Art Index Retrospective Indexes publications in the fields of archaeology, architecture, art history, city planning, computer applications and graphics, crafts, film, folk art, graphic arts, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, museology, painting, photography, sculpture, television, textiles, and video. Includes citations to art reproductions.
ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM) Indexes journals, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, dissertations, and exhibition reviews. Coverage extends from artists and movements beginning with Impressionism in the late 19th century, up to the most recent works and trends in the late 20th century.
AskART Includes information for over 123,000 artists. International coverage.
Many article databases contain information about articles (citations or abstracts), not the entire text of the article. Once you've used an article database to find articles on your topic, you may need to use this button: in order to locate and read the full text of the article. The UC-eLinks button appears in nearly all the databases available from the UCB Library website.
UC-eLinks will link you to the online full text of an article if UCB has paid for online access; otherwise, UC-eLinks will help you locate a print copy on the shelf in the library. If UCB doesn't own the article in print or online format, UC-eLinks can also help you order a copy from another library.
For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 4 min.)
You can also set up UC-eLinks to work with Google Scholar. For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 2 min.)
Project MUSE articles from 250 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
ArticleFirst articles from 11,000 popular magazines and scholarly journals
JSTOR Includes over 1000 scholarly journals - scholarly -- not current
Searching Library Catalogs
Use OskiCat to locate materials related to your topic, including books, government publications, and audio and video recordings, in the libraries of UC Berkeley. OskiCat will show you the location and availability of the items that we own.
Use Melvyl to locate materials related to your topic located at other campuses in the UC system, or worldwide. You can use the Request button to request an item from another library, if we don't own it.
Using Melvyl (but not OskiCat) you can find articles as well as books, easily format a citation for copying into a bibliography, and see images of book covers, when available. Melvyl will also show you the location and availablity of items that we own.
Melvyl has changed as of January 2012, and now includes many more articles. Detailed Melvyl help
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is an easy way to do interdisciplinary research, and with some settings changes can become even more useful. You need a Google account to use these features.
Set up a Google Scholar Alert to be automatically notified when new articles are added to Google on topics of interest:
Do your search in Google Scholar. Look in the green toolbar for the envelope icon, and click it. New items will be sent to your email account as they are found by Google.
Make Google display links to full text of articles that Berkeley subscribes to:
Open Scholar. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner, and choose 'scholar preferences'. In the new window, scroll down to 'Library Links', type the word Berkeley. Choose University of California, Berkeley-- UC eLinks, and Open Worldcat Search.
Do a Google Scholar search. Click on the "Cited by" link under a citation and select the "Search within articles citing..." checkbox.
Databases for Film Studies
The MLA Bibliography can also be a good source for film criticism, particularly for films that were adapted from novels.
Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text Indexes 150 scholarly and popular periodicals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 300 other periodicals selectively for reviews and articles on the topic film and television. Search by keyword, production title and more or browse by some 2000 subject headings.
FIAF: International Index to Film Periodicals Indexes scholarly and popular journals, books, book reviews, and proceedings worldwide on a wide range of topics within the fields of film and television studies. Includes complete data from all volumes of the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972 to the present), the TV-related companion (1979 to the present), the annual volumes of the International Index to Film.
Film Index International Indexes almost 100,000 international feature films and shorts, Hollywood entertainment shorts, documentaries, and television movies from all over the world. Includes references to critical and industry articles on films, articles on personalities from approximately 260 international film/TV journals, information about film awards and prizes, and searchable plot summaries with cast and crew lists. This database is produced in collaboration with the British Film Institute.
Searching Library Catalogs
Use OskiCat to locate materials related to your topic, including books, government publications, and audio and video recordings, in the libraries of UC Berkeley. OskiCat will show you the location and availability of the items that we own.
Use Melvyl to locate materials related to your topic located at other campuses in the UC system, or worldwide. You can use the Request button to request an item from another library, if we don't own it.
Using Melvyl (but not OskiCat) you can find articles as well as books, easily format a citation for copying into a bibliography, and see images of book covers, when available. Melvyl will also show you the location and availablity of items that we own.
Melvyl has changed as of January 2012, and now includes many more articles. Detailed Melvyl help
Project MUSE articles from 250 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
ArticleFirst articles from 11,000 popular magazines and scholarly journals
JSTOR Includes over 1000 scholarly journals - scholarly -- not current
Where's the PDF?
Many article databases contain information about articles (citations or abstracts), not the entire text of the article. Once you've used an article database to find articles on your topic, you may need to use this button: in order to locate and read the full text of the article. The UC-eLinks button appears in nearly all the databases available from the UCB Library website.
UC-eLinks will link you to the online full text of an article if UCB has paid for online access; otherwise, UC-eLinks will help you locate a print copy on the shelf in the library. If UCB doesn't own the article in print or online format, UC-eLinks can also help you order a copy from another library.
For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 4 min.)
You can also set up UC-eLinks to work with Google Scholar. For more information, watch this video tutorial (about 2 min.)
Citation Management Tools
Citation management tools help you manage your research, collect and cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but any are easier than doing it by hand!
Zotero: A free plug-in that works exclusively with the Firefox browser: keeps copies of what you find on the web, permits tagging, notation, full text searching of your library of resources, works with Word, and has a free web backup service.
RefWorks - free for UC Berkeley users. It allows you to create your own database by importing references and using them for footnotes and bibliographies. Use the RefWorks New User Form to sign up.
It's always good to double check the formatting -- sometimes the software doesn't get it quite right.
Formatting Citations
Citing Your Sources - a brief online guide to the main citation styles and a brief discussion on what constitutes plagiarism.
MLA handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th edition. New York : Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Doe Reference Reference Hall LB2369 .G53 2009 Main Gardner Stacks LB2369 .G53 2009 Many older editions available throughout the UCB libraries.
The Chicago Manual of Style(UCB-only access) 15th ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2003. Searchable, online version of the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition). Many print editions available throughout the UCB Libraries.
In order to avoid plagiarism, you must give credit when
You use another person's ideas, opinions, or theories.
You use facts, statistics, graphics, drawings, music, etc., or any other type of information that does not comprise common knowledge.
You use quotations from another person's spoken or written word.
You paraphrase another person's spoken or written word.
Recommendations
Begin the writing process by stating your ideas; then go back to the author's original work.
Use quotation marks and credit the source (author) when you copy exact wording.
Use your own words (paraphrase) instead of copying directly when possible.
Even when you paraphrase another author's writings, you must give credit to that author.
If the form of citation and reference are not correct, the attribution to the original author is likely to be incomplete. Therefore, improper use of style can result in plagiarism. Get a style manual and use it.
The figure below may help to guide your decisions.
Book a 30-minute appointment with a librarian who will help refine and focus research inquiries, identify useful online and print sources, and develop search strategies for humanities and social sciences topics (examples of research topics).
Schedule, view, edit or cancel your appointment online (CalNetID required)
This service is for Cal undergraduates only. Graduate students and faculty should contact the library liaison to their department or program for specialized reference consultations.
Ask a Librarian 24/7 Chat
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When you use this chat widget a reference librarian from Berkeley, or another UC campus, or another academic library around the US may be answering your question. We share information about our libraries to make sure you get good answers.
If the librarian can't answer you well enough, your question will be referred to a Berkeley librarian for followup.
Have fun chatting.
Reference Desks Help
"There are no dumb questions!"
That's the philosophy of reference librarians, who are here to save you time and trouble. If you get stuck, you can talk to a reference librarian at any campus library.
in order to locate and read the full text of the article. The UC-eLinks button appears in nearly all the databases available from the UCB Library website.
Use OskiCat to locate materials related to your topic, including books, government publications, and audio and video recordings, in the libraries of UC Berkeley. OskiCat will show you the location and availability of the items that we own.
in the upper right corner, and choose 'scholar preferences'. In the new window, scroll down to 'Library Links', type the word Berkeley. Choose University of California, Berkeley-- UC eLinks, and Open Worldcat Search.
