This guide offers some useful starting places and strategies for doing research for this course. I'm happy to consult with you on any aspect of your research, from developing a research question to finding, evaluating, and citing sources. – Karen Storz, Research & Instruction Librarian
The databases listed here are just a selection of what is available through Wellesley. See our Databases list and browse by Subject or Content type to find other databases relevant to your research.
Full-text scholarly journal articles and books on all aspects of literature, along with literary reference works (encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, and topic overviews) and the full text of thousands of literary works from the 8th century to the present.
Scholarly articles on literature, languages, linguistics, film, folklore, and rhetoric, from all cultures.
Full-text peer-reviewed articles on gender, sex, and sexuality in history, sociology, psychology, education, art, and more.
Scholarly journal articles and books in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Does not include the most recent 3-5 years of many journals.
Search these databases to find biographies, overviews of a literary topics and theories, author interviews, and other background information. You can also find these kinds of articles in Literature Online (LION) database above, by choosing Reference Works.
Biographies, topic overviews, reviews, interviews, and scholarly analysis of authors and works from all genres, eras, and regions of the world.
Thousands of articles by scholars focused on the lives and events that have shaped African American and African history and culture, along with primary source documents, encyclopedias, and biographies.
Annotated bibliographies for a variety of subject areas.
Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers
Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era (e-book)
Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability by 
We Pursue Our Magic: A Spiritual History of Black Feminism by 
Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America by 
How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory by 
New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000 by 
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Use quotation marks " " to search words as a phrase. This will narrow your results.
"science fiction"
Use AND to combine multiple concepts in your search. This will narrow your results.
"science fiction" AND black AND feminism
Use OR to find different ways your topic could be expressed. This will expand your results. Group these related terms in parentheses, so the database interprets them first. The following search will find results that have "science fiction" along with any one of the terms in the first set of parentheses and any one of the terms in the second set.
"science fiction" AND (black OR "african american") AND (feminism OR womanism)
Use an asterisk * to find variant endings. This will expand your results. For example, feminis* will find feminist, feminists, feminism.
"science fiction" AND (black OR "african american") AND (feminis* OR womanis*)