HUM 7000 - Research Methods: HUM 7000 Research Methods

You can use these searching tips for your other classes too.

• Article databases and the catalog don't recognize phrase searching, so break your topic into the main keywords or concepts.  For example, if your topic is the origin of nonviolence, don't type "what is the origin of nonviolence" in the search box.  Instead, type in: nonviolence AND protest AND (history OR origin OR birth) or something similarly structured.
   
• Try to think of as many different ways to describe your topic as you can.
   
• When you find a good article, look at their footnotes or endnotes to see what articles the author read--you might find a few good ones that you can use.  See box below for how to find articles when you have a citation. 
   
• Use truncation to expand your search results, for example, if you type in "polit*" it will capture politics, political, politicize, etc.  Some databases do this automatically, but many do not. 
   
• Click on linked author names, subject headings, or any other descriptive terms in book and article descriptions.

How would you find the full text for the following citation?  This happens most frequently when you look in the footnotes or bibliography of an article--this is a great way to find primary sources on your topic as well.  There are two methods for finding a citation:

Braithwaite, Alex, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, and Jeffrey Kucik. (2015)  "The conditioning effect of protest history on the emulation of nonviolent conflict." Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 6: 554-557.

Method 1

1. Go to the Library's eJournals tab on the Quick Search box; University Libraries search.
2. From the search box, type in the title of the journal (Journal of Peace Research).
3. Do not type your article title in the box.
4. If WSU owns the rights to the journal, see if we have the year, volume, and issue number you need.
5. If WSU doesn’t have the journal you want or doesn’t have the year/volume/issue you need, use Interlibrary Loan.

Method 2

1. From the home page of the University Libraries, use the Quick Search box.
2. In quotations, type in the title of your article ("The conditioning effect of protest history on the emulation of nonviolent conflict.")
3. In the results, if the article is available, you will see either the citation or a link out to the full-text
4. If you do not see a full-text link out, be sure to select the yellow "Find-It" button.  You may find a full-text link to either another service we subscribe to or a link to InterLibrary Loan.

Following a thread of citations allows you to see how one scholar influences another. Using the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), determine who is responding to the work of Vivian Zamel.

1. 1. Connect to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. From the main page of the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Next to the editions, use the drop-down menu and add Social Science Citation Index to search both at the same time.
       
   2. Click "Cited Reference Search." (Don’t use browser navigation buttons from now on.)
       
   3. Next to the “Cited Author” search box, select the green AZ. This will take you to the cited author index. (AHCI is very specific about how it allows you to search for an author. It’s best to start with the index to be sure you’re looking for the right person.)
       
   4. Find your author by entering the last name in the search box. Scroll until you reach your author's name. There may be more than one entry depending on if a middle initial is also used. Determine which is/are your author, click "Add to query" Your author is now in the "Cited Reference Search" box.
       
   5. From the main screen, click "Search."
       
   6. The results page is listing the works of Vivian Zamel that have been indexed in these databases. Titles of journals, books, conference proceedings, etc. are abbreviated.

Keep in mind that scholars don’t cite only scholars with whom they agree; they cite other important scholars as well. Read the articles to determine whose “camp” a scholar is in.

You can also use the citation index to target a single article, for example, J. Truscott, "The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes," Language Learning, 46(2), 327-369, 1996.  Use the title of the article on the Documents search page to find References used in the paper and cites by other authors.

WorldCat contains the books from most of the college/university libraries in the U.S. plus some from Canada and Europe.  You may be able to request books you find in WorldCat via Interlibrary Loan.