HIST 112 - World History Since 1450
Library Research Guide
Finding articles in JSTOR
Click through each tab for a step-by-step guide explaining how to find articles using JSTOR.
The Databases link is located on the Libraries' homepage below the Search It box.
Search It can search many, but not all of our databases. You'll often need to search one of these subject specific databases like JSTOR, America: History and Life, or EconLit for best results.
- Find databases by name. If you know the name of the database, click on the first letter of its name. To access JSTOR, click on the letter "J".
- Find databases by subject. These are roughly organized by subject/department. For JSTOR, click on History.
Note that there are three lists of databases for History.
- History shows the top databases for primary or secondary sources.
- History: Primary Sources show the databases with primary source materials like diaries, newspapers, and films
- History: Secondary sources show the databases with secondary sources like journal articles, books, and reports
Databases are listed alphabetically. You might see a subject page with Best Bets at the top. If the database you need isn't in the Best Bets group, scroll down until you find the alphabetical list of databases for the subject.
Click on the database title to open it. You will be asked to sign in with your K-State eID and password.
JSTOR's home page include two identical search boxes and two identical links to Advanced Search. *shrug*
As of August 2024, JSTOR also includes the Artstor Image database.
Advanced Search offers options to focus your search so that you don't get 100,000 irrelevant articles.
There are many ways you can refine your search in JSTOR. You will often get an overwhelming number of results in JSTOR, so the options to narrow results can save you time.
- Each line in the search section is for a separate concept.
- I combined the terms Filipino OR Philippines in the first box because I don't know how an author might describe this community.
- Insert OR between synonyms or related terms to tell JSTOR that you will accept results with any of those words.
- Select an Access type
- Content I can access allows you to limit your results to materials K-State Libraries subscribes to and that you can access in full text immediately
- Everything allows you to see citations for all materials in JSTOR. You may need to use Interlibrary Loan to request materials K-State Libraries does not have access to.
- See the next slide for more selections you can make on the bottom of this search page.
Narrow your results in Search It
- Item Type
- Articles: removes the hundreds of book reviews that will appear otherwise.
- Reviews: shows only book reviews
- Journal Filter: limits your search to articles from journals relevant to your topic. (JSTOR's default search looks at all of the disciplines.)
- Not sure what is included in a discipline? Click the arrow to the left of the check box to reveal a list of all the journals grouped under that heading.
- You can un-check or check specific titles from this list, too.
- You can choose multiple disciplines by checking them.
- Title (of article, chapter or book)
- Author(s)
- Journal title or Book title
- Journal volume, issue, and date
- Pages
- Preview of search terms from the text
Click on the title to open the article, click on download to save it to your computer. There are also options to cite the article.
The article page contains many options to save, share, and view the article.
- Use the stable URL (has the word "stable in the URL) or DOI URL to share or save the link to the article.
- Scroll to read the full article
- Download to save article as a PDF
Additionally, many pieces of information of the page will lead you to more resources.
- Note that the journal title, issue, and author's names are all hyperlinked. Now that you know that they publish and write about a topic that is relevant to your research, see what else they've produced.
- References (imperfectly) shows the sources cited in this article. If available through JSTOR, they will be linked.
- Cited by links to other sources in JSTOR that cite this particular article (or book)
- Related text links to other articles in JSTOR on a similar topic
