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.
As a Berkeley student you are eligible to use books and articles from other libraries around the United States.
Check OskiCat to make sure UC Berkeley does not own the material you want.
Provide a full and accurate bibliographic citation, including author, title, place and date of publication, and series. You can get citations from professors, from Melvyl, from other articles, from Google scholar. Verify your citations before submitting them for ILL.
One of the most powerful ways to find primary sources in the Library is to use the names of people. An essential part of your background reading should be to note down names of people involved in your topics.
Names can be searched in the catalogs [Oskicat and Melvyl] in specialized ways: as authors or as subjects. Even people you do not consider authors in the conventional sense may be listed as authors, if:
their correspondence is available
their manuscripts are available
interviews with them are available
their diaries are available
published versions of these are available
When searching for primary sources, it's a good idea always to search those names as authors, as well as keywords. Works where the person is listed as an author will always be primary sources.
Primary Sources Online - Overview
The texts of primary sources are available online in two different ways:
available via library databases (example: Gerritsen Collection of Women's History Online) that may be used from any computer with access to the campus network. Off-campus access is limited to UCB faculty, staff and students; see Connecting from Off Campus for instructions for using the proxy server.
HathiTrust (Hathi is pronounced hah-tee) is a partnership of libraries that works towards the goal of developing a shared digital access, preservation, and storage solution for the materials held in the member libraries. The contents of HathiTrust are similar to that of GoogleBooks, but the collecting focus is on scholarly materials and the resource includes content and features (such as indexing and manipulation of results) not available in Google Books.
Downloading PDFs
To limit to “full view” (public domain materials) in your search, check the “full view only” box.
From the “full view” of any item, click on Download whole book (PDF).
Click login.
Choose the University of California, Berkeley from the drop down list and click login.
Enter your CalNet ID and passphrase.
Click Download whole book (PDF).
PDF will load and you will choose to either open it or save it.
Tips for searching HathiTrust:
Phrase Searching: Use quotes to search an exact phrase: e.g., "occult fiction"
Wildcards: Use * or ? to search for alternate forms of a word. Use * to stand for several characters, and ? for a single character: e.g., optim* will find optimal, optimize or optimum; wom?n will find woman and women.
Boolean Searching: Use AND and OR between words to combine them with Boolean logic: e.g., (heart OR cardiac) AND surgery will find items about heart surgery or cardiac surgery.
Tips for doing a full-text search:
Phrase Searching: Use quotes to search an exact phrase: e.g., "occult fiction."
Multiple Term Searching: When your search terms are not quoted phrases, avoid common words (such as: 'a', 'and', 'of', 'the', etc.) to speed up your search.
Boolean Searching: Use AND and OR between words to combine them with Boolean logic: e.g., heart OR cardiac will find items containing the word heart or the word cardiac; heart AND cardiac will find items containing both words. Use a minus (-) to remove words from the result e.g., heart -cardiac will find items containing the word heart that do not include the word cardiac.
Choose the University of California, Berkeley from the drop down list and click on login.
Enter your CalNet ID and passphrase.
Click on Create a New Collection and name your collection (the description is optional).
Indicate whether it is a "Private" or "Public" collection.
Click on Add.
In the future if you want to edit, change the private/public setting, or delete the collection, your collections will always be listed in the "My Collections" tab whenever you are logged in to HathiTrust.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service
The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) can provide you a wealth of information from foreign news sources. The U.S. State Department ran the FBIS to translate foreign language newspapers, wires, and broadcasts into English. FBIS only translated information relating to U.S. interests, and only distributed to the public a select amount of what was translated.
At UC Berkeley, we have 2 databases for locating FBIS documents:
Finding FBIS documents from before 1996 at UC Berkeley can be tricky, and involves using both the FBIS Electronic Index and OskiCat. The best search strategies are country, city, or personal names combined with a date range in the FBIS database. Here are two examples of citation information from the database:
Example 1: FBIS Region: China (CHI) Title: USSR Delegate Attacks China In UN General Assembly Speech Date: January 15, 1980
Example 2: FBIS Region: Soviet Union (SOV) Title: Leontyev Warns U.S. Of Boomerang Effect Of PRC Arms Sales Date: January 15, 1980
When you have the results, take the abbreviation found in the FBIS region and add it to a title search for FBIS-(abbreviation) in OskiCat. For instance, in example 1 your search would be FBIS-CHI and for example 2 your search will be FBIS-SOV. If title search does not work, you can try a keyword search. This will lead you to a record for the microfiche.
Once you have your microfiche call numbers, go to the Newspaper and Microforms Room in the basement of Doe Library and look for that particular microfiche call number. You can browse the microfiche by date and find a report with the daily translations. NOTE: Some paper versions of the FBIS documents are housed off campus at NRLF. The FBIS-SOV search is an example of this type of record. In this case, you can use the request button in OskiCat to make your request. Because the record does not indicate date, this can be very confusing and browsing the microfiche may be an easier way to find this information.
Foreign National Governments
The UC Berkeley Libraries are one of the very few libraries in the United States which continue to collect foreign government information on a large scale. We have particularly strong collections for Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Do a search in Oskicat for "poverty" and a country. African Governments Custom Search. This is a search engine for web sites from Sub-Saharan African governments. For best results, search using the official language(s) of the country you are interested in.
Foreign/International Governments Custom Search. Collection of Google custom search engines from Carleton University Library, including Asia & the Pacific, Latin America, & the Middle East. Includes a mix of sites from international agencies, news services, and NGOs.
Foreign Government Internet Sites. Links to the official government legislative and agency sites of foreign governments. From Northwestern University Libraries.
Government in Latin America - Provides links to regional organizations and government information by country. Information Includes: constitutions, presidential messages, central bank reports, and other official documents.
If the library location in OskiCat says "Newspapers and Microforms" it is referring to the Newspapers and Microforms Collection, 40 Doe Library.
To get there, enter the north entrance of Doe Library (the side facing Memorial Glade and the East Asian Library). Walk straight ahead until you reach the marble stairs; do NOT take the stairs, but instead turn right and go down the hall until you see stairs to the basement. (There is an elevator around the corner). Once you go down the stairs or elevator, the entrance to the Newspapers and Microforms collection should be directly in front of you.
The collection's hours are 10-7 M-Th, 10-5 on Fridays. The collection is not open on weekends, and microfilm cannot be checked out.
There are a limited number of machines -- please plan ahead! Be sure to bring a flash drive so you can save scanned copies of the microfilm to your disk. Scanning is free, but printing from the microfilm reader/printers is 10 cents a page. You MUST use your Cal1 card to pay for printing.
In the News/Micro collection, microfilm rolls and microfiche cards are shelved with their own numbering system; click here for a PDF of the collection's floorplan.
Don't hesitate to ask for help! The News/Micro staff are experts in the use of the machines.
So, you've found the newspaper you want to use. And you have a topic you want to research. How do you find articles in the newspaper? There are several strategies.
Look at issues of the newspaper around the date of the event you are interested in.
Or, use an index to the newspaper to search for the event or person you want.
Or, use a newspaper database as an index to search for the event or person you want.
Secondary Sources- European History
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. Use the link above, then under Current Limits, specify Arts and Humanities Citation Index. For more guidance on using this database see the following tutorials: Creating Alerts and Creating an RSS Feed.
Historical Abstracts Indexes over 2,000 journals, as well as historical book reviews and dissertations, published worldwide about all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Articles covered were written from 1954 to thepresent
History Channel Speech Archives Online audiorecordings of speeches and other addresses by international political leaders; on-site recordings of notable historic events.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Provides full-text access to thousands of 19th Century Parliamentary Papers. Includes all the "sessional papers" of the British Parliament: bills, reports of committees, papers presented by Royal Commissions and government departments, treaties and international agreements, command papers, and statistics.
Finding a citation in a bibliography (online or in print) is a great way to find more resources on your topic.
However, you have to be able to read the citation in order to find the item in the UCB Library.
The most common citations are for books, articles, and book chapters. Can you tell which citation below is for a book? For a chapter? For an article?
Orbe, Mark P. "Representations of Race in Reality TV: Watch and Discuss." Critical Studies in Media Communication 25.4 (2008): 345-352.
Winters, Loretta I., and Herman L. DeBose. New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc., 2003.
Fine, Michelle, and Adrienne Asch. “Disability Beyond Stigma: Social Interaction, Discrimination, and Activism.” The Culture and Psychology reader. Eds. Goldberger, Nancy Rule; Veroff, Jody Bennet New York: New York University Press. 1995. 536-558
Orbe, Mark P. "Representations of Race in Reality TV: Watch and Discuss." Critical Studies in Media Communication 25.4 (2008): 345-352.
The article "Representations of Race in Reality TV: Watch and Discuss" is in the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication, volume 25, number 4, 2008, pages 345-352.
Find it by searching a library catalog (OskiCat or MELVYL) for the journal titleCritical Studies in Media Communication. Do we have volume 25, number 4? Is the text online or is that issue of the journal available in a campus library?
Winters, Loretta I., and Herman L. DeBose. New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc., 2003.
This book, New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century was published in 2003 by Sage Publications, which is located in Thousand Oaks. (Place of publication and publisher are standard parts of a book citation).
Look it up in a library catalog (OskiCat or MELVYL) by title or by the authors (last name first).
Fine, Michelle, and Adrienne Asch. “Disability Beyond Stigma: Social Interaction, Discrimination, and Activism.” The Culture and Psychology reader. Eds. Goldberger, Nancy Rule; Veroff, Jody Bennet New York: New York University Press. 1995. 536-558
This article, "Disability Beyond Stigma..." is a chapter by Fine and Asch. It was published in the book The Culture and Psychology Reader, edited by Goldberger and Veroff. The book was published by New York University Press, located in New York.
Look it up in a library catalog (OskiCat or MELVYL) by the author or title of the book, not the chapter.
There are many other types of resources available for research. If you have questions about interpreting a citation or locating a source, please ask for assistance.
Catalogs and Google Scholar
Oskicat. UC Berkeley libraries catalog. Includes records for most UCB library materials, including books, e-books, journal and e-journal titles, films and videos, maps, archival materials, and much more. See also the Quick Guide to Oskicat and Oskicat Tutorial.
Melvyl. Catalog for all UC Campus libraries, including selected libraries on campus not in Oskicat, e.g. the Boalt Law Library. Why use Melvyl? It includes thousands of scholarly journal articles and links to WorldCat, which gets you into the collections of libraries around the world
Google Scholar. It automatically connects you via UC eLinks to articles and other content licenses by the UC libraries.
Oskicat journal search
Suppose you know the name of the journal, newspaper or magazine you want. Does Berkeley own it? Search Oskicat to find out.
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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You can type your question directly into this chat window to chat with a librarian. Your question may be answered by a reference librarian from Berkeley, from another UC campus, or another academic library elsewhere in the US. 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 follow-up.
Have fun chatting!
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.
