Dr. Alex E. Blazer

Curriculum Vita

Teaching Portfolio

Composition Research Methods

Overview

This handout will help you find scholarly books and book chapters, scholarly journal articles, magazine articles, and newspaper articles using Minerva and the article databases available on the University Libraries Homepage, http://library.louisville.edu.

Books

At U of L, all searches for books and book chapters begin with Minerva, the online catalogue accessed on the University Libraries Homepage.

• Subject Search: Enter your topic into a "Browse Subjects" search. This retrieves a list of works that the library has already organized for that particular subject. Be aware that your subject words might not match the library's categorization system. Therefore, you should generate a list of possible terms that the library might use to classify the topic you are researching.
• Keyword: If the subject search doesn't offer many results, then try a "Keyword" search. Inputting the various possible topical terms will retrieve books that have that exact phrase somewhere in the title, table of contents, or subject.
• Records Options: The table at the bottom of the results page allows you to either email the results of your search to yourself or to save your search to be retrieved later using your library card number.

Periodicals

Threre are three types of periodicals, which can be ranked in terms of authority and appropriateness in an academic research paper: newspapers, magazines, and journals. Newspapers are issued daily or weekly; magazines are issued weekly or monthly. Journals are scholarly publications that are issued two to four times a year. Journal articles are extensive, exhaustive 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. You should complete your research with journal articles; use magazines and newspapers if and only if necessary and your instructor allows them.

 

To search for periodicals at UofL, use the links under the Articles heading on the University Libraries Homepage. If you are using an ISP other that UofL's, you must login to verify that you are affiliated with UofL to use licensed databases. To browse databases by topic, click Databases By Topic. If you know the database you're looking for, click All Databases A-Z and browse to the database. The databases that will be of most use to you in a composition course are:

• Alt-Press Watch: Alternative and independent media.
• America: History and Life: Index to scholarly publications in American history to the present; useful for historical background and semiotic analyses.
• Ebsco Academic: Formerly Academic Search Premier, indexes over 3,200 publications. To guarantee that search results will be comprised of scholarly journal articles, limit your results to "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals."
• Humanities Index: A much smaller database than MLA, but nonetheless useful. When you search, be sure to check the Art Abstracts and the Essay and General Literature boxes in order to broaden your searchable databases to include results in art, film, and general essays.
• International Index to Music Periodicals: Indexes magazines and journals devoted to music, as well as music related articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post.
• International Index to the Performing Arts: Indexes journals on theatre, film, and the performing arts. Many full text articles exist, but be wary of film and play reviews. Journal articles are always preferable to reviews. Do not use reviews unless your instructor specifically allows them.
• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe: A database much like EBSCO Academic.
• Literature Online: Incorporates the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), JSTOR, and the MLA International Bibliography into its index, accesses over 150 full-text journals, and provides full-text of over 350,000 English and American poems and play. Click on "Criticism and reference," then proceed with your Keyword or Author/Subject Search search. The results from the Criticism wil be your best bet; do not use the results from Reference and Web Sites unless your instructor specifically allows internet and reference sources.
• MLA International Bibliography: Database of literary criticism. Input the author and/or the title of the work you're researching (inside quotation marks) into a Keyword search. Results include journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews, and dissertations. Disregard book reviews and obtain the book being reviewed. Disregard dissertation abstracts unless you have the time to order the dissertation.
• Music Index Online: Another music index.
• Newsbank Newspapers: Local and regional newspapers
• Newspaper Source: National and internation newspapers
• New York Times: One of the nation's most authoritative newspapers; different links offer different levels and years of full-text access.
• Proquest Research Library: Formerly Periodical Abstracts, database of general periodicals.
• Statistical Universe: Use this database if you need statistics to support your analysis
• STAT-USA: Use this database if you need financial and economic statistics to support your analysis.

Just as the Minerva catalogue has a Records Option, most of these databases allow users to save marked records and download them to disk or email them. Once you find a periodical that might be useful for your research, the next step is to retrieve it. While a fraction of periodicals are available for download from the database, the majority require the user to determine in UofL Libraries has the periodical. To do this, type the name of the periodical (not the article title) into a Journal Title search in Minerva. I recommend that you record library call numbers with your books and periodicals in order that you can easily retrieve them at a later date.

Websites

I have found over the years that 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 101 and 102 classes who are doing scholarly research projects to use scholarly materials from the library and its databases and I discourage them from using general internet sources.