Spanish 022

Introducción a la literatura española

Pamela Harris

Head of Research & Instruction

what we'll discuss today:

how to actually find the articles and
books that you need: a tale in three parts

part one

finding relevant
articles and books

there are three parts to finding the scholarly
books and articles that you need

information resources (e.g. JSTOR, Tripod)
terms (e.g. "Golden Age" "Siglo de Oro")
advanced search tools (e.g. narr*)

different databases and catalogs let you
find different kinds of sources

Tripod, WorldCat and Google Scholar

books and articles from various academic disciplines

JSTOR, Project Muse and ProQuest

journal articles from various disciplines

MLA International Bibliography and LION

articles and books from modern languages,
literature, folklore and linguistics

find links to these resources
on the research guides

part two
brilliant search terms

what are synonyms and related words for your topic?
e.g. Golden Age, Siglo de Oro, honor, honra, morals
do scholars refer to your topic using particular language? what is that language?
are there regional or cultural variations in the terms used to refer to your topic?

for example, let's say you are interested in
the theme of honor in Spanish Golden Age literature:

you could also search for
honor, honra

chivalry, caballeria

morality, moralidad

social commentary, comentario social

why bother thinking so much
about search terms?

working with a partner
take a few minutes to discuss your research topics and brainstorm
possible keywords

what are synonyms and related words for your topic?
e.g. caballero, knight, picaresque, wanderer

do scholars refer to your topic using particular language? what is that language?

are there regional or cultural variations in the terms used to refer to your topic?

what words were in use at the time you were studying?

part three

use advanced search tools
to combine your terms effectively

phrase searching

(narrows your results)

if you search social commentary in Tripod, you'll find books and articles containing those two words.
if you search for "social commentary" (in double quotes) in Tripod you'll find books and articles with those words in that exact order.

truncating

(expanding your search)

in many databases searching for narr* will return results matching narrator, narrador and narrative.

Google automatically does this!

boolean searching

(pulls it all together)

example:
("siglo de oro" OR "golden age") AND
cervantes AND (picaresque OR caball*)

upon reflection . . .

select the databases that will work best for your research

use the Spanish 022 research guide to find suggestions

come up with a list of search terms
use advanced search tools to get better results

get help with your research

Pamela Harris

Head of Research & Instruction

pharris1@swarthmore.edu

Office Hours (McCabe Research & Information Desk)

Tuesdays 3-5PM; Wednesdays 3-5PM

other times by appointment - email to schedule

Title

this is a frag

Title

WHAT WE'LL DISCUSS TODAY:

How to find the books and articles
you actually need for your project

part one

finding relevant
articles and books

there are three parts to finding the scholarly
articles and books that you need

information resources (e.g. JSTOR, Tripod)
terms (e.g. "Golden Age" "Siglo de Oro")
advanced search tools (e.g. narr* )

Different databases and catalogs
let you find different sources

Tripod, WorldCat and Google Scholar

JSTOR, Project Muse and ProQuest

MLA International Bibliography, LION (Literature Online)