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LANG/GWS 3750 Reimagined Women in Japanese Lit

About This Guide

This guide will walk you through the research process with recommended course-specific resources. A list of some recommended resources included in this guide is below.

Don't forget to check out our other Research Guides for any interdisciplinary research.

Screen reader user? Follow these links to get instructions on using the Library Search interface to find books and journal articles.

Recommended Databases

Boolean Operators and Symbols

Boolean Operators are words or symbols used to combine keywords in a search.

The most commonly used operators are: AND, OR, and NOT. When used in all caps, search engines (Library Search, databases, and Google) recognize them as a specific function. These are best described by using Venn diagrams.

Click the tabs at the top of this box to learn more about each operator.

Use AND when you want to limit your search to a specific combination of words.

If you are researching social media but receive too many results about social media users or the social media site itself when you only want information on social media about the experience of influencers, you could use AND to make sure you only receive results with both terms in the item record.

OR will expand your search to results that have one, the other, or both search terms in the item record.

If you are researching something with a name that varies depending on the context, you can use OR to make sure the system is searching all possible versions of that term. For example, some information on LGBTQ+ topics uses the term "LGBTQ" while "homosexual" is more commonly used in medical texts. If you want both, use OR to combine your terms.

Use NOT to narrow your search and eliminate instances of another term.

If you are searching with a term that is part of a larger term not relevant to your research or that term is also used in a different field, you may need to use NOT to remove results. For example, if you are searching for the portrayal of witches in the media and use the term "witch," you may receive results about The Witcher, a book, video game, and Netflix series. To remove these results, use NOT.

To use NOT in Google searches, use - (minus sign).

Though some Advanced Search features of search engines allow you to have multiple search boxes with drop-down menus for Boolean Operators, you can use multiple operators in single line searches.

( ) Just like in math, parentheses are their own groupings. This part of the search is done before it is combined with any other part of the search.

" " Quotation marks make sure that two or more words are in that exact order or are found with that exact spelling.

* An asterisk functions as truncation. It can be used to find words with multiple endings. For example, teach* will search for teach, teacher, teachers, teaches, and teaching.

? A question mark functions as a wildcard. It can be used to find words where only one letter is changed. For example, wom?n will search for women, woman, womyn, and womxn.

example advanced search using separate search boxes

example advanced search using one search box

Both of the searches above will function the same even though they are written differently.

MLA Style Citation for a Journal Article

MLA Format

Last, First, and First Last. "Title of Article." Title of Journal, vol. #, no. #, Year, pp. #-#. DOI.

Example

Gottvall, Maria, et al. "Post‐migration Psychosocial Experiences and Challenges Amongst LGBTQ+ Forced Migrants: A Meta‐synthesis of Qualitative Reports." Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 79, no.1, 2023, pp. 358–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15480

Notes

  • The first author's name is structured as last name, first name. Following authors are listed as first name last name.
    • If there are 3 or more authors, only list the first author followed by et al. (Latin for "and others").
  • The title of the article is in Title Case
  • The title of the journal is in italics and Title Case
  • The volume number is noted with vol.
  • The issue number is noted with no.
  • Only the year is included for academic journal articles
  • Page numbers are noted with pp.
    • Omit the first sets of repeated digits. Pages 225 to 251 would be notated as pp. 225-51
    • A single page is notated as a single p.
  • The DOI can be formatted as a link (https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15480) or as a number (DOI: 10.1111/jan.15480). If there is no DOI, use a permalink from the Library Search item record or the database you found it in.
  • Create a half-inch hanging indent

Research Honeycomb Model

honeycomb with 6 hexagons around one that is labled topic

Research Honeycomb

Information comes in many different forms. What are some categories or types of voices where you can find information?

Model of a honeycomb

Research Honeycomb Model

In academic research, we tend to only emphasize academic voices while there are many other voices in different formats that can be used in a scholarly context.

Research Honeycomb with LGBTQ+ topics

Example Research Honeycomb

Here is an example of a Research Honeycomb for LGBTQIA2S+ topics.