WRIT 137: The Novels of Jane Austen: Secondary Sources: Books & Articles

Books can be a good place to start to get comprehensive overviews and historical context. You can use a book's table of contents or index to narrow in on particular concepts of interest to you.

Try a keyword search. Once you find a book that's relevant to your topic, click on the title and look for Subjects in the record of that book to help you find "more like this."

Sample keyword search:

• child-rearing AND england AND history
   

leads to linked subject terms and more books on this topic:

• Children > England > History.
• Families > England > History > 19th century.
• Parenting > Great Britain > History 

Not finding enough, or an item checked out? Search WorldCat and request a copy through Interlibrary Loan.

Databases contain a combination of full text articles (ready to read online) and citation information about articles, book chapters, or books.

• use synonyms and truncation to find all the ways your topic is expressed--computers are very literal
• combine multiple concepts using AND / OR for best results

sample topic:   women and property rights in Regency England

(woman OR women OR female) - synonyms

AND (property OR owner* OR possess*) - truncation

AND (regency OR 19th century) AND england