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Research Guides

WRIT 173: The Novels of Edith Wharton

Welcome

This guide provides 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. Email me or make a calendar Zoom appointment!

- Karen Storz, Research & Instruction Librarian

Get Started with SuperSearch

SuperSearch is a great place to start for journal articles, books and almost everything else the library has, in one easy to use interface.

For searching with more focus and precision, try one of the databases recommended on this guide.

Because SuperSearch contains so much content from so many different kinds of resources, the results can sometimes be overwhelming and hard to focus. At the same time, SuperSearch is also not comprehensive and can miss key sources. To search with more focus, precision, and depth, be sure to try the databases recommended on this guide, as well as the library catalog for books and films.

For more on how to search, see the Search Tips & Tutorials page of this guide.

Key Databases for Scholarly Sources in History & Literature

Databases can contain a combination of full text articles (ready to read online) and citation information about articles, book chapters, or books. To find additional databases relevant to your research interests, go to the Library's Databases A-Z list and use the Subjects menu.

Search Tip: Some databases search a relatively small amount of information about each source by default, rather than the full text of the source itself. Trying a variety of keywords is often essential to getting good results in many databases. Make note of relevant keywords and subject terms that come up in your initial searches, and use those terms to find more.

Quick Search Tips

These tips work in SuperSearch and most databases.

Use quotation marks " " to search words as an exact phrase. This will narrow your results.

"gilded age"

Use AND to combine multiple concepts in your search. This will narrow your results.

"child rearing" AND "gilded age"

Use OR to find sources that have either keyword or phrase. 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 any one of the terms in the first set of parentheses along with any one of the terms in the second set.

("child rearing" OR motherhood) AND ("gilded age" OR "progressive era")

Use an asterisk * to find variant endings. This will expand your results.

("child rearing" OR mother*AND ("gilded age" OR "progressive era")

Search the Library Catalog

Catalog Search Tips

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

Sample keyword search:

 

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

 

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

Selected Background & Overviews