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HY 441 - Research Seminar in U.S. History - The Civil Rights Movement: Journal Articles

This guide was created to support HY 441.

What are Scholarly Articles and Where do I Find Them?

A database is a collection of many different academic journals that can all be searched at once. Most academic journals use a peer-review process to review articles for quality before publication.

You search a database by creating a search query. Search queries use search terms and can have Boolean Operators and punctuation. Based off your search query, you will get a list of articles (and other resources) as results.

JSTOR

  • Narrowing a search - If you have too many resources to scroll through, there are ways to narrow down the list.
    • Add filters
      • Date
      • Content type (format)
    • Use the "Search Within Results" search box on the side.
      • Add more specific terms
        • If I originally just searched - ("United States" OR USA OR US OR America)
        • Then I could search within those results with something like - (Georgia OR Alabama OR Mississippi OR Biloxi OR Atlanta OR Savannah OR Birmingham)
  • Search matches - When you are looking at a particular item, you can see where JSTOR found your search terms in the item