Research Guides: ENGL 373 Victorian Crime: Research Tips and Searching with Databases

Research tips

-Brainstorm different search terms that relate to your topic (try to think of broader concepts that relate to your topic, and more specific concepts that relate to your topic; surround your topic!)

-Don't forget to try multiple searches using different combinations of search terms AND try multiple searches in different places (different databases, catalogs, Internet, etc.)

-Try to get an understanding of the scholarly conversation relating to your topic that has already occurred, then figure out how you can add to that scholarly conversation.

-Keep a record of what search terms you use, and keep track of each source you are considering using. Keeping your research organized will save you time and effort!

Link to All Hope College Databases

Databases A-Z List

Recommended Databases

MLA International Bibliography (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Subject: Literature, Humanities
Content/Description: Citations from journals, series, and book publishers. Covers literature and cricitism, language and linguistics, folklore, dramatic arts, historical printing and publishing, rhetoric, composition, and language/literature instruction.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Subject: Interdisciplinary
Content/Description: Includes articles, books, reviews and other sources. "Data for Research" provides interactive content. "Workspace" saves and shares sources. "Text Analyzer" searches for sources with user documents. "Understanding Series" provides sources quoting selected text.
Project MUSE - Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
Subject: Humanities, Social Sciences
Content/Description: Contains full-text journals
Historical Abstracts (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Subject: History
Content/Description: Provides scholarly journal articles covering world history from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life).

MLA Searching Options

Don't forget to utilize the different ways of searching MLA Bibliography!

Tips for Jstor

Jstor is an excellent full text archive of humanities, social science and business journals and includes a large number of history journals.

This is not an exhaustive collection, and it will not contain things published within the last 4 years.
Remember, because you are searching the full text of the article, choose your keywords carefully to avoid getting irrelevant articles. A plus side of this is JSTOR is good for searching for more obscure referenes to a topic.

To limit your searches further, select specific disciplines from the limiting list.

To further control your search, use special search characters to increase the presence of certain important terms:
^# after a word will request that that particular word be present a minimum of # number of times in the article (ex. irish^10 AND soldier^10)
~# after two words in quotes will ask that those word be within # words of each other. (ex. "women* suffrage"~5)

Recommended Journals

List of journals relating to Victorian
You can browse through these journals to get an idea for what other scholars of the Victorian era are interested in and studying. This can help you get ideas, look at bibliographies, understand research trends, choose a topic, and more.