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Pan African Studies 344: The Literature Of Africa and The Caribbean
Professor: Patricia Grizzle
Librarian: Lynn Lampert
The following library and Internet resources are geared toward the research
needs of CSUN students taking PAS 344. Choosing
the best resources to use for your assignment involves several factors.
Books | Periodical Indexes/Databases | Locating Periodicals | Internet | Citation Style Guides | Avoiding Plagiarism | Resources for English and Linguistics | Print Resources for Literary Research
Books- How to locate a book on your selected
topic.
Books may be searched in the Library Catalog by author, title,
Library of
Congress Subject Heading, or keyword.
For books not held by the Oviatt Library, request an Interlibrary Loan,
but allow about 2 weeks.
If you are searching for background information about a historical event,
person, historiographical arguement or issue etc., you will need to think
about how to search for this information.
What words can you use to describe your topic?
Your topic itself may prove to be the words that make up your search term.
This will most likely lead you to conduct a keyword search.
Keyword vs. Subject Searching
For example: If my topic was researching the writing by Carribean women-
I should conduct the Subject search Caribbean fiction -- Women
authors.
That will take you to several titles including
Locating Periodicals
Periodical Indexes/Databases
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Periodicals (magazines, newspapers, trade publications, and scholarly journals) are excellent sources of current and/or specific information for research projects.
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It's a good idea to formulate a search strategy before using a periodical database.
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The following databases use Boolean Logic (AND, OR, NOT) and truncation/wildcards symbols (*, ?, etc.) for combining keywords and phrases to locate articles on specific topics.
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For a complete list of available databases, see Databases A-Z.
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FYI, you can also connect to the Library's databases and full-text periodicals from off campus
- For the purposes of your assignment you will need to access the following databases:
Black Studies Center brings together essential historical and current material
for researching the past, present and future of African-Americans, the wider
African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable
component databases
combining several resources for research and teaching in Black Studies:
Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black
Periodicals (IIBP), The Chicago Defender, and the Black Literature Index
The Literature Resource Center integrates biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every time period and literary discipline from numerous Gale directories. It covers more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers. New and updated material is added quarterly.
Note: You may also find these databases to be helpful in working to complete your research assignment.
MLA Bibliography indexes literature, linguistic sources 1963-
1963 to present.
Provides over one million citations for items from journals and series
published worldwide.
Indexes books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations,
and bibliographies.
Contains in each record a bibliographic citation for a journal article,
book, or other item including information about the libraries that own the
library resources. Now includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals, which
provides full information on more than 4,000 journals and series in the
MLA International Bibliography Master List of Periodicals.
Bibliography of Africana
Periodical Literature Database (free resource)
available at http://www.africabib.org/africa.html This English language
database indexes over 33,000 articles from over 280 English language and
multi-lingual journals and periodicals that specialize in African Studies
or consistently cover the African continent.
African Women's Bibliographic
Database available at http://www.africabib.org/women.html
This English language database contains over 22,000 citations from 1986
to current. The database indexes six types of materials: books and government
documents; articles appearing in edited books; periodical and journal articles;
Masters theses and Ph.D. dissertations as well as a few B.A. theses and
honors papers; conference papers; and videocassettes.
Project Muse is a full-text resource of journal articles. It includes 167 full-text titles of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences and mathematics from over 20 not-for-profit scholarly presses. Project contains full text of periodicals like Africa Today, Callaloo, (the premier African Diaspora literary journal), Research in African Literatures, and Small Axe
Academic Search Elite (EBSCOHost)
Provides full text for nearly 1,850 periodicals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to the full text, indexing and abstracts are provided for all 3,237 periodicals in the collection. This database offers information in nearly every area of academic study, including communication studies. Allows limiting search results to peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
Book Review Digest Plus indexes around periodicals which include reviews of English language fiction and nonfiction books. The database can be searched by subject, title, author, etc. The records do not indicate whether the review is favorable or unfavorable, but some records do include abstracts which may give you an idea of the opinion of the reviewer. It should be noted that the majority of the reviews indexed do not come from scholarly, academic journals. A complete list of the indexed journals is available from the link above.
General Reference Center Gold (Gale)
A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images.
From arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology, this database meets research needs across all academic disciplines. Access over 9,000 scholarly journals, and general interest news magazines and newspapers - over half contain full text and images. Browse subjects using the Subject Guide or search keywords using the Advanced Search. Coverage is from 1980 to the present. Allows limiting search results to ("refereed") scholarly journals.
MetaSearch allows you to: Determine which Library databases are recommended for Communication Studies and other subjects; link to librarians' guides to doing research in particular subject areas; search one to eight Library databases using a common interface; simultaneously search across different databases for interdisciplinary topics and/or resources in various formats (e.g., journals, books, newspapers, etc.); search for electronic journals by title; and create a personalized list of your favorite databases and e-journals.
Internet
In addition to the databases and Web sites listed above, the Internet can be a valuable source of information. However, remember to think critically about the authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and coverage of the information you find.
- Internet Search Engines - (links to favorite search engines of CSUN librarians)
- SearchEngineWatch - (comprehensive directory of search engines by type)
- Evaluating Web Pages
Citation Style Guides
Avoiding Plagiarism
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Prepared by Lynn Lampert, Social Sciences Librarian
