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A Guide To... English

This guide is a starting point for research in English literature. The guide includes recommended databases and reference sources, as well as tips for effective research.

What is a Research Database?

Databases are tools designed to help you search the scholarly (and other) articles and resources available to you through the Holy Cross Libraries.  Article databases are like very long bibliographies of articles that might interest you -- some that are available physically at Holy Cross, some available online, and some that we have to borrow from other libraries. 

Types of Databases

There are two main kinds of research databases that you might encounter: 

- General databases, like Academic Search Premier and JSTOR, which have a little bit of everything; 

 - Databases for specific subjects or types of sources (ex - newspapers, historical sources, videos, etc.) 

In addition, you will probably use CrossSearch, the search box on the homepage of the Libraries' website. CrossSearch is a discovery tool which searches many (though not all) databases at once. CrossSearch is like a library version of Google -- it is a great place to get your search started and find many sources at once. If you feel like Cross Search is overwhelming, try one of the suggested databases for theater and see what results you get.

Research Database vs. Google

Infographic titled in purple text Web Search Engine versus Database. subtitle in black text Searching the content versus Searching the metadata. In a box on the left are the words When you type in keywords to an internet search engine (like Google), it searches for your keywords in ALL (in red text) of the web page’s content!. Underneath these words is an image of a person with their hands on either side of their head, surrounded by books and loose papers. There are lines coming off his head to signify confusion. In the box on the right there is text that says When you search a Database it searches for your (begin text in red) keywords in short "profiles" (metadata) (end text in red) of the book, article, or other source that you are looking at, rather than the whole source. Below this text is an image of a target with two hands above and below focusing, like you would see through a camera scope and an image of documents. There are doodles of arrows, magnifying glasses, and question marks scattered on the page for decoration. Below the two boxes is a long narrow books with black text that says With google, you’re likely to get a lot of results, but many of them may only mention your keywords passingly and may not be relevant to your topic at all. Because databases search the “profile” or metadata of a resource for keywords, it’s far more likely that you will get more results that specifically focus on your keywords throughout the entire content of the source.

When you search a web tool like Google, you are searching every word of every page of every document, from beginning to end. There are no rules about what goes into Google, so you get a mix of everything.  And, Google can't always tell the difference between a page or article that is all about your topic, and a page or article that mentions your topic only once or twice. 

When you search in the library research tools, like the catalog or (most) research databases, you are actually just searching short "profiles" of the book, article, or other source that you are looking at, rather than the whole source. Because the profiles are very short, searching for entire sentences or phrases does not usually work well in library resources.

But, if a source comes up because its profile mentions your topic, it's much more likely that the source will actually be on your topic. And while the research tools have many different types of sources in them, they're all published sources, so they've been checked for quality on at least a very basic level. 

Keyword Searching: How it Works

When you're using databases, you want to use keywords to search for materials related to your topic. To develop keywords for a search, think about the topics you want to explore - you might try searching a book title and some of the major themes within the work, or an author and reviews or commentary to see what other people think of their work. Lets say your project is about the book Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin. Here is a list of keywords I might use to find journal articles on that topic:

Left hand of darkness, science fiction, ecology, feminism, environmental science, critique, commentary, Hainish Cycle, violence, anti-violence.

You can search for these terms individually or try combining them for more refined results. Try using search terms like AND, OR or NOT.

If I use the terms "Ursula K. Leguin" and "Left hand of darkness" and "criticism" I will get results that contain all of those search terms together.

"review" OR "criticism" and "Left Hand of Darkness" will bring up results that include the book title as well as either review or criticism or both words together.

Use NOT when you want to exclude a word or phrase.

Here are some general tips to guide you in choosing your search terms:

  • Use concepts and other nouns as your keywords.  Think of words that are likely to be used in titles (or that you have seen in titles).
  • Spend some time brainstorming keywords and search terms. Use the subject headings/tags in each database to help you think of search terms. For example, if you search for "Left Hand of Darkness" and feminism, the subject headings might also contain words like Femininity, Masculinity, androgyny, etc. 
  • Use an asterisk * after the root of a word to find all forms of a word. For example, a search for review* will find sources that use not only the word review but also synonyms like critique or commentary.

Bonus Tip:

When you find a good article, look at its References or Works Cited list. That will often lead you to other useful sources. You can also look at information such as the name of the journal or the author for ideas of other ways to search.