Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
Library Research Guide
Getting Started
Before you do any in-depth research, it may be helpful to consult reference resources about your topic. K-State Libraries has an awesome resource that will get you started quickly and keep you well informed: the database CQ Researcher. It contains reports on current issues from the Congressional Quarterly Press.
Popular and Scholarly Articles
Below are databases that work very well for researching in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies - because it is an interdisciplinary field, you may need to search in different databases ranging from general to Sociology or Literature.
- ProQuest Research LibraryProQuest is great for finding popular articles and scholarly articles on almost any topic. It also allows you to search and filter for newspaper articles.
- Diversity Database SuiteProvides a combined search for Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, and Alt-Press Watch.
- Sociological AbstractsA great place to go for scholarly, peer-reviewed article searches. Use the Get It button to see if we have full-text access to the article.
- PsycInfo (APA)Contains citations and abstracts of the world’s literature in psychology, behavioral sciences, and related subjects. It includes citations to journal articles from more than 1,900 journal titles, technical reports, and dissertations of psychological relevance from more than 50 countries. Also includes books and book chapters.
- Communication & Mass Media CompleteContains literature about communication studies, mass media, and popular culture
- MLA (Modern Language Association) International BibliographyThis is the largest and most comprehensive database for literary criticism in all languages. Also covers folklore, linguistics, and film studies. Includes journal and book articles, books, and dissertations. Does not index book reviews in literary journals.
Newspapers and News
Many issues relevant to gender, women, and sexuality stories are often in the news. These databases cover major news outlets in the U.S. and around the world. Most, but not all, are English-language publications. If you can read another language, searching in that language (e.g. mujer instead of women) will find results from news sources in that language.
- Canadian Newsstream
Publication Dates Covered: 1970s - present Paid for by K-State Libraries
Provides users with unmatched access to current Canadian news content with archives as far back as the 1970s, from over 360 news sources. Newspapers including The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star along with newswires and broadcast transcripts in full-text format. Canadian Newsstream content is updated daily so researchers always have timely access to new information. - New York Times, Historical
Publication Dates Covered: 1851-2020 Paid for by K-State Libraries
Digitized version of The New York Times since its first issue in 1851. Search the full text of articles to find articles on a wide variety of topics. Full name of the database is ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index. - ProQuest Global Newsstream
Publication Dates Covered: 1980 - present Paid for by K-State Libraries
Search the most recent global news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring content from newspapers, newswires, and news sites in active full-text format. This product provides one of the largest collections of news from the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Includes ProQuest's Canadian Newsstream, International Newsstream, and US Newstream collections. - ProQuest US Newsstream
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Paid for by the State Library of Kansas
US Newsstream enables users to search current U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s. It features top newspapers, wires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, and news sites in full-text format. US Newsstream provides key national and regional news sources from the U.S. and includes exclusive and preferred access to top titles, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune. US Newsstream is a subset of Global Newsstream. - Times Digital ArchivePublication Dates Covered: 1785-2019 Paid for by K-State Libraries
The complete issues of more than two hundred years of The Times of London are available for keyword searching by users, including articles, advertisements, and illustrations. Coverage of specific events and trends can be reviewed, providing a contemporary view to modern researchers.
Use Search It
Search It is a tool that you can use to search across the library collection. This video (2:20) gives a brief introduction to using Search It.
How to Search
You can search the databases in different ways to find materials that will be relevant for your assignment, including:
- Use the thesaurus to help you find appropriate search terms
- Use "or" between search terms if you want EITHER word, "and" if you want BOTH
- Try truncating keywords using asterisks: ethnograph* to get ethnography or ethnographic.
- Put phrases in quotes: “professional development” “special education”
- To find research articles, try adding the words: “research methods”, data, results, discussion, study (not all of these words will appear in every article, so try using just a few or combining them in different ways.)
- Try adding a keyword for a specific type of methodology -- quantitative, qualitative, ethnography, feminist, "case study", etc…
- PsycInfo allows you to specifically limit to quantitative or qualitative research articles
- Look for a limit for professional journal articles or peer-reviewed articles
Getting the Articles
Many of the articles you find will be available online.
If you don’t see the full text on the database you are searching, use the Get It button to see if the full text of the article is available through another source.
If you find a citation to something that we don’t own, most of the time we can borrow it from another library. Please allow yourself enough time to do this! Interlibrary Loan usually gets materials very quickly, but it can take 1-2 business days for articles and 3-10 business days for books (or longer if you are off campus).
Click on “Not Available? Request from Interlibrary Loan” from the Get It menu or “Interlibrary Loan” on the library home page. For more information, see our Interlibrary Services page.
Identify Peer-Reviewed Journals Using Ulrich's
- Ulrich’s Web: Global Serials DirectoryIf you want to be absolutely sure a journal is peer-reviewed, use the database Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory. Look up the journal by title. Titles that are peer-reviewed are indicated by the black and white referee's jersey ("refereed" is another term for peer-reviewed). Note that there may be some parts of the journal (e.g. letters to the editor, book reviews, etc.) that are not peer- reviewed.
