ENGL 500 - Writing Center Theory

Dr. Alexis recommended these journals for your research. The journals include academic or peer-reviewed articles relevant to writing centers and are commonly read by professionals in the field.

Below is information about accessing the individual titles and locating full-text issues of the journals online or in print. 

Online issues:

Clicking on the journal title below will take you to the record for online issues of the journal in Search It. From there, follow the links under the View It tab to access the journal online.

Print issues:

Follow the "Print issues" link under each title to find the record for print issues of the journal in Search It. Follow the links under the Find it at the Library tab to locate print issues of the journal in K-State Libraries. 

Dr. Alexis also recommended the journal, Praxis, which K-State Libraries does not subscribe to. However, it is freely available online as an open access journal. Click on the title to access the journal.

You can follow the links to search the titles individually. However, it is most efficient to search for your topic in a database like MLA International Bibliography because it will search for articles from all of these titles. See the Databases box for more information.

You can follow the links in the Recommend Journals box to search titles individually. However, it is most efficient to search for your topic in a database like MLA International Bibliography and Google Scholar because they will search for articles from most of these titles.  

While MLA International Bibliography searches all of the journals recommended by Dr. Alexis, it does not cover all issues of all of the journals. Searching in multiple database will help address this deficit. 

The concepts you are researching may also be searched in databases covering communication studies, education, and some multidisciplinary databases, like Search It and Google Scholar.  

Below are two ways to search to increase the relevancy of your search results in MLA: use options on the Advanced Search screen and expand your search terms using the Thesaurus. 

Advanced Search

Advanced in this case means special search features for literary researchers, not that you have to be a literature expert. Advanced search features include searching by:

• Genre
• Primary Subject Author (that is - the author of a work, like Colette, is the subject of the article)
• Location
• Time Period

Below is a screen shot of the Advanced Search screen, including the search options that appear when you click on the Select a Field option in the search boxes.

Use the Thesaurus to identify terms commonly used by literary researchers.

The Thesaurus:

• appears as an option on the Advanced Search screen
• identifies alternative search terms, including broader, narrower, and related terms 

Not all keywords will appear in the Thesaurus; not all terms in the Thesaurus will have alternative terms.

A sample Thesaurus search:

1. Link to the Thesaurus from the Advanced Search page.
2. Enter your keyword in the search term box. The image below shows a search for the keyword middle.
   • All the subject terms that appear contain the word middle. 
   • Switch to subject terms that begin with middle by clicking the Begins with option under the search term box.
3. Click on a subject term to open a new window.

Below is a screenshot of the Thesaurus screen that appears for the term African American middle class. Note that the Thesaurus offers two Broader Terms and one Narrower Term:

1. Click the box to the left of any of the subject terms that you want to include in your search.
2. Once you have selected all of the terms to include, click on the Add to search button at the bottom of the box, then Close.
3. You will be returned to the Advanced Search screen with the new subject terms added.

Search for and locate journal articles through K-State Libraries' Search It. Enter keywords related to your topic in the search box. Search It indicates when the full text of an article is available online and when a paper copy of the article is available in the Libraries. If the article is not available online or in print, request articles through Interlibrary Loan. 

1. Select the tab "Books, articles + more". Enter keywords related to topic in the Search It search box.

2. Search results will include books, journal articles, and more.

3. Click on "Peer-reviewed journals" to limit results to journal articles, specifically from journals with articles reviewed by other scholars prior to publishing.

4. If the full text of the article is available online, Search It will indicate that with a green dot. Click on View It to link to the full text.

5. Search It displays a grey button when the full text of an article is not online.

• Click on Check for physical copy to learn if the library has the journal on the shelf.
• Use the publication date and/or volume from the article citation to determine if the library has the correct volume in print.
• The stacks guide shows where a call number is shelved.

6. When an article is not available online or in print from the Libraries, request a copy using Interlibrary Loan. 

• A grey button indicates the full text is not available online.