Research Methods

This handout will help you find scholarly journal articles, books, and book chapters using Voyager and the article databases available on the Ina Dillard Russell Library homepage. In addition to this handout, the Library Guides show you how to access the Library Catalog, the Universal Catalog, the Journal Locator, and GALILEO. You should always use scholarly journal articles and books in a research paper because these constitute appropriate research in all venues. However, you should not use websites in research unless your instructor explicitly allows and your assignment prompt directly calls for them because websites generally offer context rather than scholarly analysis.

II. Books

A. GIL

At GCSU, all searches for books and book chapters begin with a Galileo Interconnected Libraries (GIL) GCSU Library Catalog search, the online catalog for books available in the GCSU library.

General Search: To conduct a general search of the catalog, be aware of the drop down menus and change if necessary.
- GIL-Find: This option searches for items in the catalog. The drop down option "Course Reserves" also allows search for items in course reserves.
- Georgia College & State University: This option searches for items in the GCSU catalog. The drop down option "University System of Georgia" searches for items across the 26 institutions, which you can request to have delivered to the GCSU library 3-5 business days. I recommend only using this option only for long research papers.
- All items: This option searches for Books, Images, Journals, and Scores. You can also set the drop down menu to only search for "Books," "Images," "Journals," or "Score."
- that contain my search words: This option searches for any of the search words. You can also set the drop down menu to search for items "with my exact phrase" or an item that "begins with."
- anywhere in the record: This option searches for search words "in the title" (including book descriptions and book tables of contents), "as author/creator," "in subject," in the "ISBN." You can also set the drop down menu to search for words "in the title" (including book descriptions and book tables of contents), "as author/creator," "in subject," or in the "ISBN."
  - as author/creator: If you want to search for primary texts (novels, short story collections, books of poetry, plays, and films) by an author, select "as author/creator" from the dropdown menu, and input the author's last name then first name, separated by a comma. For example, entering "O'Neill, Eugene" into an Author search will return original works written by O'Neill himself.
  - in the title: If you want to search for primary texts (novels, shorts story collections, books of poetry, plays, and films) by title, then select "in the title" from the dropdown menu, and input the title of the work in quotation marks. For example, entering "Long Day's Journey into Night" will return all editions of the play that the library owns.
  - in the subject: If you want to search for secondary texts (works of scholarly criticism written about the author or literary work), then select "in the subject" from the dropdown menu, and input the author's last name and first name, separated by a comma. This retrieves a list of scholarly criticism written on the author and her work. For example, entering "O'Neill, Eugene" will return books on Eugene O'Neill and his work. After a search for the author as subject, search for the title of the work in quotation marks as subject. For example, entering "Long Day's Journey into Night" will return books on the play.
Advanced Search: Use the advanced search to filter results by language and/or date.

A note about annotated bibliographies and research papers: Primary texts (poems, plays, stories, graphic literature, films, and television shows) are creative literary and film works that are analyzed and interpreted by academic scholars in secondary sources such as scholarly, peer reviewed journal articles, books, and book chapters. Primary texts should not be included in annotated bibliographies in my classes and do not count toward the minimum number of secondary sources in research papers in my classes.

B. ILLiad

If you know of a book that GIL and GIL Express do not own, you can attempt to borrow it through InterLibrary Loan (ILLiad). You will have to create a username and password. Here is the ILLiad Library Guide.

III. Journal Articles

Journals are scholarly publications that are issued two to four times a year. Journal articles are extensive, sometimes book chapter-length essays written by scholars in the field. Therefore, journal articles should not be confused with magazine and newspaper articles, which are short essays written by non-academics on deadline.

While searching for journal articles, be sure to check the box limiting your search to scholarly, peer reviewed journals. Even after limiting your search, your results might include some types of sourses that are not appropriate for including in literary research:

Book Reviews: Book reviews are not journal articles. Rather than using a book review as a source, obtain the book being reviewed.
Critical Excerpts: Rather than using an excerpt in your research, retrieve the full article.
Undergraduate Theses, Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations: In my classes, undergraduate theses are not appropriate to use as scholarly sources because they are generally not reviewed by anyone other than the advisor. Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations are acceptable because they are typically reviewed by committee.
Magazine Articles: Magazines often have large issue numbers and magazine articles are often less than 10 pages long (compare to journal articles which are usually more than 10 pages long); when in doubt if a periodical is a magazine or a scholarly journal, ask your professor.
Masterplots: Plot summaries are not appropriate in literary research.
Newspaper Articles: Newspapers often have large issue numbers and newspaper articles are usually only a couple of pages long (compared to journal articles that are usually 10 or more pages long); when in doubt if a periodical is a newspaper or a scholarly journal, ask your professor.

There are two steps in the process of researching journal articles. First, you must search article databases for articles; and, second, if the article is not available as an electronic full-text, you must locate the journals that contain the articles.

A. GALILEO

Use GALILEO to find scholarly journal articles as well as electronic books.

General Search: The general search provides results of not only scholarly journal articles but also periodicals and electronic books. Use the general search if and only if you are able to differentiate between journal articles, books, and periodicals.
- Full Text Only: Check this box to limit search results to full text only.
Advanced Search: The advanced search allows you to search by author, title, subject, and source, discipline, and within full text articles. You can also limit results to full text, scholarly (peer reviewed) journals.
- Select a Field (optional): Use the drop down menu to search all of the text, author only, title only, subject terms, or journal title.
- Choose a discipline to search: Check specific disciplines if you want to limit your search by discipline.
- Limit your results: Check "Full Text" and/or "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" to limit your results. Although the advanced search allows you to limit search results to scholarly peer reviewed journals, you should also double-check the results in case a general periodical has been mislabeled as a scholarly journal.
All Databases: If your general and advanced GALILEO searches are not returning sufficient results, you should also search the following library databases, which are available in the "All Databases" link at the top of the GALILEO start page as well as at the bottom of the GALILEO start page in the Tools section as the Databases Provided by Georgia College & State University (GLRI). The following library databases provide secondary sources in literary and film studies.
- Academic Search Complete
- Research Library (ProQuest)
- JSTOR
- Project Muse
- Literary Criticism Online
- International Bibliography of Theater & Dance with Full Text (IBTD)
- Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey)
- Literature Online Premium (LION) (ProQuest Platform)
- Literary Reference Center Plus
- Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online
- MLA International Bibliography (Literature and Language)
- EBSCO Ebooks Academic Collection
- ProQuest Ebook Central

B. Non-Library Databases

Here are three good databases/search engines available outside of the library's site.

Directory of Open Access Journals: Includes a section on literary criticism journals.
Google Scholar: This version of Google searches for scholarly books and journal articles which you can either find online or input into GIL, GIL Express, or Galileo.
SweetSearch: A database of about 35,000 web sites vetted by researchers, librarians, and teachers, with priority given to spots like the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and other public and academic sources.

C. Locating Journals

If you have scholarly journal articles that do not come with full text electronic access, you should search for the scholarly journals in which they appear.

All Journals: The All Journals link located at the top of the GALILEO start page allows you to search for journals available in the GCSU library.
ILLiad: If our library does not own the journal, you may request the article from ILLiad.

Composition Research Methods

I. Overview

This handout will help you find scholarly journal articles, books, and book chapters using Voyager and the article databases available on the Ina Dillard Russell Library homepage. In addition to this handout, the Quick Links Library Guides show you how to access the Library Catalog, the Universal Catalog, the Journal Locator, and GALILEO. You should always use scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and books in a research paper because these constitute appropriate research in all venues. You can use high quality periodicals and websites in research if and only if your your instructor explicitly allows them and your assignment parameters directly call for them because periodicals and websites typically offer contemporary opinion rather than rigorous and vetted analysis.

Note to Fall 2022 ENGL 1101 Students: Paper 3 Analysis and Argument mandates at least two scholarly sources, which may be supplemented by high quality periodical and web sources.

II. Books

A. GIL

At GCSU, all searches for books and book chapters begin with a Galileo Interconnected Libraries (GIL) GCSU Library Catalog search, the online catalog for books available in the GCSU library.

General Search: To conduct a general search of the catalog, be aware of the drop down menus and change if necessary.
- GIL-Find: This option searches for items in the catalog. The drop down option "Course Reserves" also allows search for items in course reserves.
- Georgia College & State University: This option searches for items in the GCSU catalog. The drop down option "University System of Georgia" searches for items across the 26 institutions, which you can request to have delivered to the GCSU library 3-5 business days. I recommend only using this option only for long research papers.
- All items: This option searches for Books, Images, Journals, and Scores. You can also set the drop down menu to only search for "Books," "Images," "Journals," or "Score."
- that contain my search words: This option searches for any of the search words. You can also set the drop down menu to search for items "with my exact phrase" or an item that "begins with."
- anywhere in the record: This option searches for search words "in the title" (including book descriptions and book tables of contents), "as author/creator," "in subject," in the "ISBN." You can also set the drop down menu to search for words "in the title" (including book descriptions and book tables of contents), "as author/creator," "in subject," or in the "ISBN."
Advanced Search: Use the advanced search to filter results by language and/or date.

B. ILLiad

If you know of a book that neither the GCSU library nor USG libraries do not own, you can attempt to borrow it through InterLibrary Loan (ILLiad). You will have to create a username and password.

III. Journal Articles

Journals are scholarly publications that are issued four to six times a year. Journal articles are extensive, sometimes book chapter-length essays written by scholars in the field. Therefore, journal articles should not be confused with magazine and newspaper articles, which are short essays written by non-academics on deadline. Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, refrain from using magazine and newspaper articles as sources in an research paper. While most journal articles are availabe in electronic format, some are only available in physical journals. For those articles in physical journals, you must also locate the journal in the library.

A. GALILEO

Use GALILEO to find scholarly journal articles and electronic books in library databases.

General Search: The general search provides results of not only scholarly journal articles but also periodicals and electronic books. Use the general search if and only if you are able to differentiate between journal articles, books, and periodicals.
- Full Text Only: Check this box to limit search results to full text only.
Advanced Search: The advanced search allows you to search by author, title, subject, and source, discipline, and within full text articles. You can also limit results to full text, scholarly (peer reviewed) journals.
- Select a Field (optional): Use the drop down menu to search all of the text, author only, title only, subject terms, or journal title.
- Choose a discipline to search: Check specific disciplines if you want to limit your search by discipline.
- Limit your results: Check "Full Text" and/or "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" to limit your results. Although the advanced search allows you to limit search results to scholarly peer reviewed journals, you should also double-check the results in case a general periodical has been mislabeled as a scholarly journal.
All Databases: If your general and advanced GALILEO searches are not returning sufficient results, you should also search the following library databases, which are available in the "All Databases" link at the top of the GALILEO start page as well as at the bottom of the GALILEO start page in the Tools section as the Databases Provided by Georgia College & State University (GLRI).
- Academic Search Complete
- EBSCO Ebooks Academic Collection
- ProQuest Central
- ProQuest Ebook Central

B. Non-Library Databases

Here are two good databases/search engines available outside of the library's site.

Google Scholar: This version of Google searches for scholarly books and journal articles which you can either find online or input into GIL and GALILEO.
SweetSearch: A database of about 35,000 web sites vetted by researchers, librarians, and teachers, with priority given to spots like the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and other public and academic sources.

C. Locating Journals

If you have scholarly journal articles that do not come with full text electronic access, you should search for the scholarly journals in which they appear.

All Journals: The All Journals link located at the top of the GALILEO start page allows you to search for journals available in the GCSU library.
ILLiad: If our library does not own the journal, you may request the article from ILLiad.

IV. Web Sources

Most composition students equate research with Google and most do not understand how to evaluate the quality of the information they find on the internet. Although I have taught critical website evaluation, it takes time out from analytical writing instruction. Therefore, I emphasize scholarly research within the realm of the university library and its site licensed databases, for these sites have already been reviewed. I require students in 1101 and 1102 classes who are doing scholarly research projects to use scholarly materials from the library and its databases.

You can supplement scholarly research with high quality web sources in research if and only if your your instructor explicitly allows them and your assignment parameters directly call for them because web sources typically offer contemporary opinion rather than rigorous, vetted analysis. The Online Writing Center at Purdue University provides useful links on Evaluating Sources: General Guidelines and Evaluating Digital Sources.