For database search strategies, check out the Search Tips Guide.
Can't find what you're looking for at Wellesley?
Use WorldCat Discovery to search and request directly from libraries worldwide via Interlibrary Loan.
Questions? Interlibrary Loan Guide
Scholarly sources are typically dense and provide a large amount of focused, detailed information on a topic, written by academics for academics. Often, scholarly sources have been peer reviewed.
For precision searching, try one of these databases. They contain a combination of full text articles and citation information about articles, book chapters, or books.
Scholarly articles on topics in anthropology, cognitive and linguistic sciences, economics, education, international relations, political science, criminal justice, and sociology, many of which are peer reviewed.
Peer reviewed articles, dissertations, theses, and book reviews on health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations, and education.
Scholarly and peer reviewed articles in sociology.
Peer reviewed articles and book reviews of American and Canadian history, prehistory to present and searchable by historical time period.
Scholarly peer reviewed articles, books, government reports, policy documents, and working papers, and conference papers on education. Strong in theoretical and sociological aspects of education as well as pedagogy.
Dates: 1966 CE-Present
SuperSearch can be a great place to start to find out what's out there on your topic. SuperSearch will find books, journal articles, films, news, and almost everything else the library has — from popular to scholarly sources. You can use the filters on the results screen to improve your results.
For searching with more focus and precision, try one of the databases recommended on this guide.
Although SuperSearch includes the library catalog, searching the catalog separately can give you a smaller, more focused set of results. While SuperSearch will search inside many books, for example, the library catalog will just search information about each book. This can be very helpful for relevancy, but it means the specific terms you choose become more important. Try a variety of keywords, and use what you find to find more. You can also use the subject terms to browse related materials.
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 for
leads to linked subject terms and more books related to this topic, e.g.,
Clicking the first word or phrase above will show you everything listed under the broader topic (e.g., College students). Clicking a subsequent word or phrase will take you to the narrower topic (e.g., clicking "United States" or "Attitudes" in College students > United States > Attitudes will show you everything listed under that subtopic of "College Students").
Once you find a useful subject term, you can also use it to browse related subtopics, by choosing "Browse Alphabetically by Topic" from the menu next to the search box, and entering the subject term.
Don't know where to find a book in the Library? Check out this quick guide.