Your textbook, Best-Loved Folktales of the World, provides you with the basic resources. The materials you will find using this guide can help put those stories into context.
Here are some questions to ask yourself before beginning research on your paper:
- What resources are available?
- How do I find them?
- How do I know if they are any good?
- How can I use them in my paper or project?
Access library resources at the Rutgers University Libraries Web page (http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu). IRIS is the library's online catalog. There, you'll find records for all the books and periodicals owned throughout the Rutgers Libraries system.
As you begin your research, you might want to browse IRIS for books on your topic. Here are some samples of searches you might find useful (set "option: library:" to DANA to save time):tales Africa --folklore and dictionaries --
folklore and (south america) --
Finding periodicals is a three-step process.
- Browse articles concerning your general topic
- Identify articles on your subject.
- Locate the periodicals themselves.
Step one: Browse articles concerning your general topic. Step two: Identify articles on your subject.
- At the Rutgers University Libraries Web page, click on Indexes and Databases.
- Academic Search Premier is good place to begin your search because it offers a mix of scholarly and popular articles on a wide variety of topics, most of which are available full-text. If you are unsure of the distinction between popular and scholarly periodicals this tutorial is helpful. Basically:
- Scholarly articles include footnotes and a bibliography. They may employ specialized language that is not explained to the reader. Scholarly periodicals are often published by universities or professional organizations.
- Popular articles, by contrast, do not include footnotes or other citations. They are written in simple language that can be understood by everyone. Popular magazines often have lots of pictures and can be found at most newsstands.
Since it includes such a wide range of periodicals, Academic Search Premier offers an opportunity to explore a topic broadly. After you've browsed through some of the articles here, you will be ready to focus your search more narrowly.
As you narrow your search, you may want to narrow your search and explore some of the more subject-specific indexes in the humanities and social sciences. Here are some indexes that may be helpful:
- Social sciences indexes and databases
- Anthropological Literature lets you see how how many different articles it contains on a given subject and region/area/culture. Click on "subject word" and enter folklore in the search box for a list. The articles appear to be highly technical, however.
- Contemporary Women's Issues provides access to articles concerning women in more than 190 countries. Try combining "folklore" with terms such as "culture and customs."
- Ethnic NewsWatch allows you to search in English or Spanish. You can also search by ethnic group, publication name or subject. A pulldown menu allows you to browse subject terms, which can help you find search terms to use.
- Hispanic American Periodicals Index indexes articles about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Look through the online thesaurus for subject words in order to focus your search.
- Humanities indexes and databases
- Humanities abstracts is probably the most broad in terms of subjects covered. They include archaeology and classical studies, art, folklore, history, language and literature, literary and political criticism, philosophy, religion and theology.
- MLA Bibliography covers literature, language, linguistics and folklore.
- JSTOR provides access to the back issues of more than 100 journals, many going back to the 1880s. For more older items, try Humanities Index or Social Science Index (formerly called Poole's Index or The International Index to Periodicals) in print. Both are located in Reference, call number "AI" section.
Tip: If you don't find what you're looking for in a particular index, you may not be using the correct search terms. See if the database allows you to browse subject terms or if there is an online thesaurus.
Step three: Locate the periodicals themselves.
Many of the articles you will find are not available full-text. This means that you have to take the extra step of checking IRIS to see if the library owns that periodical.
In IRIS, click on "browse" and enter the name of the periodical in the search box (this will often be listed under "Source" in the index). Click onto retrieve the periodical record:
- Does the record say "electronic access," followed by a hyperlink? If so, click on the link to see if the volume and issue number that you are looking for is available online.
- Examine the "library has" lines to see if Dana or another Rutgers library has paper or microfilm copies of the periodical.