Last revised: October 1, 2007

ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES 298E & 498E

Scope: This tutorial is intended to support the assignments in AAST298E amd AAST498E, “Asian American Sexualities,” taught by Jane Dusselier.

Table of Contents

• Using Web Sources
• How to Search the Catalog & the Databases (Using Boolean Logic)
• Catalog
• How to Use Research Port
• Research Port Databases
• Other Tools

Using Web Sources

Often students think they can get all of the information they need merely by using a search engine such as Google to browse the Internet. Although some useful information may be found this way, this is not the primary route for scholarly research:

• General Internet searches will yield only a very small percentage of the "scholarly" information that is available on a given topic. Scholarly information is controlled by copyright and thus is available primarily through scholarly journals or through databases, such as the Libraries' Research Port databases, that index these journals. So rather than making data available free on the Internet, scholarly information is controlled by publishers and researchers who want to get paid for their efforts. The Libraries pay for costly subscriptions to scholarly journals and to the Research Port database so that UMCP students and faculty can have free access to this scholarly information.
  
  
• Another reason that one should not rely solely on browsing the Net to get scholarly data is that there is no control over the validity of the information. Anyone can create a Web page; consequently, data in many Web sites contains errors or may be intentionally distorted (e.g. due to a particular political bias). In other instances, the information may be very out-of-date.
  
  
• Despite these constraints, researchers occasionally still can get good information by browsing the Internet, but only after carefully evaluating that Web Site and its data. The Libraries have created a guide to Evaluating Web Sites to help students do just that.

• Here is an example of an Asian American gateway to Internet sites: Yale University. (Asian American) Research Resources..
  
  

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How to Search the Catalog & the Databases (Using Boolean Logic)

When searching the Catalog or Databases, you will have most success if you use Boolean logic:

• Boolean logic uses the words AND, OR, and sometimes NOT, to connect key terms. One should use Boolean rather than randomly searching individual terms, or rather than searching a complete prose phrase:
  
  Example: "Describe the lives of intermarriage in Asian American families."
  Instead, you should identify key terms, the most important words in the search phrase
  
  Example: intermarriage, Asian American, families
  and use these terms with the Boolean connectors
  
  Example: intermariage AND Asian American AND families
  when conducting the search.
  
  
• AND narrows a search, and OR expands it. So, if the search yields too many results, you can reduce the number of "hits" by adding an additional required term and connecting it to the other terms with the word AND. On the other hand, if a search yields too few results, you can enlarge the number of search results by adding an additional term and connecting it to the other terms with the word OR.
  

Other ways to expand or narrow searches:

• If you have few hits, or if you want to expand your search or conduct a thorough search, search keywords and also words that are related to those keywords (including synonyms and other forms of the word). For example in addition to searching on the phrase, “Asian American,” you can also search on the phrases “Asian Americans,” “Japanese American,” Japanese Americans,” “Chinese American,” and “Chinese Americans.” Similarly, in addition to searching on the word “intermarriage,” you can search on the prases “intercountry marriage,” "interethnic marriage," "interethnic marriage," etc.
  
  
• A shortcut to using multiple forms of a term, is to use a truncation symbol, which acts as a “wild card.” The catalog and most (but not all) databases use an asterisk (*) as the truncation symbol. Thus if you write “asian american*”, then the database will simultaneously search for the words “asian american,” “asian americans,” and “asian americans'.” Or if you search using “marriage*”, then the database will simultaneously search for “marriages.” So by changing the original search of "intermarriage AND Asian American and families" to "intermarriage* Asian American* AND “lesbian* AND families", you will be expanding your search so that it will yield more citations.
  
  
• Another way to narrow searches is by searching for a given term only if it is used in the title or is used as a subject. The catalog and most databases automatically search for the desired term in all or most of the data in a citation (i.e. the database will search for the word in the title, the author, the subject, the abstract or summary of the article, etc.). In most cases one will see the term “Default Fields” or “All Fields” to indicate that all or most of the fields are being searched. If your search produces too many citations, and many of them appear irrelevant to your topic, you may search for the term only if it is listed in the title or as a subject. To do this, change the search menu item from “Default Fields” or “All Fields” to “Title” or “Subject” options. Note: Some databases use the term “Descriptors” instead of “Subject.”
  

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• Searching for Books:

  Search the Libraries' Catalog for books and documents on your topic. Start with a "word/s anywhere" search.
  
  Example: “Asian Americans” and families
  
  Please note that the Catalog does not recognize phrases unless you put the phrase in quotation marks. So, be sure to enclose phases such as “Asian Americans,” Chinese American,” etc. in quotation marks. If you do not, the search engine will search for each word separately. Also note that the Catalog will only search for two word phrases.

• Searching for Journals:

  You can also use the Catalog to find out whether the Libraries subscribe to print* copies of a particular journal. Click on the "Journals" button. Then conduct a "title beginning with" search on the JOURNAL TITLE (not on the ARTICLE TITLE).
  
  Example: American Asian Review

  In this example, the actual title of the journal is The American Asian Review; however, we dropped “The” from our search. One of the idiosyncrasies of our Catalog is that it does not like searches that begin with articles. So drop “a,” “an,” or “the” from the beginning of searches; otherwise you will get errors.

  You cannot use the Catalog to search the contents of journals for actual articles. To search for journal articles, you need to use Research Port Databases such as those that are listed in the next section of this guide/tutorial.

*Important Note: In addition to print copies of journals, the University of Maryland Libraries subscribe to many journals in electronic format. The Catalog does not list many of the electronic journals to which the Libraries subscibe. Search for these by selecting the "E-Journals" link in Research Port.

Further information about how to use the Catalog is available in an online Catalog Guide.

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How to Use Research Port

• You can reach previously listed databases by going to Research Port. If you are off campus, and select “Research Port” from the Libraries’ homepage, you will be asked to input your id number and last name (if you are using an on-campus computer you will not be asked to do this).

• When you are on the Research Port page, click on the “Databases” link. You may then look at individual databases (by selecting the “by database name” link and clicking either the desired title or the respective magnifying glass icon.). Or you may look at lists of all of the databases assigned to a given topic (by selecting the “by subject category” link).

  Some subject areas which might be helpful for this course are: family studies, lesbian gay bisexual transgender studies, and social science. I do not recommend that you select the Asian and Asian American studies category at this time, for it currently has an emphasis of Asian rather than Asian American sources.

• You can search some of these databases simultaneously by selecting the “Cross Search” option. Then select a subject area to bring up lists of databases. Click the boxes beside those databases that you wish to search.

• For the purposes of this course, you will not need to use the “Quick Search,” the “E-Journals,” the "Cross-Search," or the “My Research Port” options.

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By going to the Libraries' Research Port page, you can get access to the more than 300 bibliographic databases. These databases are indexes that allow users to perform comprehensive searches for journal articles. Such searches will yield either article citations or full-text articles, depending on the respective indexes and articles. In addition to searching journals, most of these indexes also search other types of documents such as conference proceedings, research reports, book and book chapters, and government documents.

If you find a citation for an article that you need, but the full-text does not appear to be available on-line, the next step is for you to hit the “Find It” button. By doing this you will learn if there are possibly full-text source links that did not appear on the previous screen. If there are no full-text links, the “Find It” screen will tell you if the journal that contains the desired article is listed in the Libraries Catalog. If it is, you may click on the Catalog link that appears on the screen to get the call number of the journal. With this call number you can determine library location where you can physically retrieve the journal (and the desired article).

If the Libraries do not own a journal or book that you need, Interlibrary Loan can possibly get it for you. This is a free service offered to all patrons who have a current UM ID. The ILL office will search libraries throughout the nation to get books, periodical articles, dissertations, microforms, government documents, and technical reports that you may need. All you need to do is to submit an Interlibrary Loan Online Request Form. ILL usually receives the requested items in about two weeks. A link to this form is also available on the “Find It” screen.

Databases that might be useful for finding articles for this course include:

• Ethnic Newswatch. You will probably find this database to be quite useful for your assignment. This is a full-text database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press.
  
  
• GenderWatch
  This is a full-text database comprised primarily of articles from the many ongoing periodicals that deal with gender issues, including academic and scholarly journals, regional publications, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, booklets and reports. Among some of the journals that are indexed by Genderwatch are The Advocate, GLAAD Notes, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Revue, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, Journal of Homosexuality, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Lambda Book Report, The Lesbian Revue of Books, and off our backs.
  

Note: Both Ethnic Newswatch and GenderWatch are distributed by the same company. Thus you may search these databases simultaneously. Do do so, click on the link to either one of them (by going to “databases” and locating it through the alphabetic directory, and click on the title—not on one of the icons below it). Once in one of these databases, click on the “databases selected link” to get a menu of all of the company’s databases. Click on in the box both Ethnic Newswatch and GenderWatch , and then click on one of the “continue” buttons at the top or bottom of the page. These steps will enable you to search both databases at once.)

In addition to articles, your instructor may wish for you to find materials in other formats, such as videos, sound recordings, computer files. The "WorldCat" database may help you to locate these types of items. This is also a good source for finding citations of books, including those not owned by the University of Maryland Libraries.

• WorldCat. This is a catalog of books, serial publications, media, visual materials, musical scores, and archival materials in libraries worldwide.
  
  

Here are additional databases that you might find helpful:

• Academic Search Premier. This EBSCO-based tool is a multi-disciplinary database comprised of articles from 3000 general, humanities, social science, and science periodicals. It is popular with students because of its access to many full-text articles.
  
• Alternative Press Index is an index to citations from 380 alternative, radical, and left publications, including some l/g/b/t oriented journals.
  
  
• Contemporary Womens Issues is comprised of abstracts from journal articles, newsletters, research reports, government and international agencies, and fact sheets from 1992 to the present. Contemporary Womens Issues has much data on lesbian issues.
  
  
• CQ Researcher covers news topics in a wide range of subject fields, from social issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. This full-text database is unique in that each issue of this publication selects a specific timely topic and presents comprehensive information on all aspects of this topic. This information includes history and background information, a detailed report of the current situation, relevant pro & con arguments, bibliographies, and contact information. Some of the topics on which this tool provides comprehensive information are as follows: gay rights, combating AIDS, adoption controversies, domestic partners, hate crimes, and diversity in the workplace.
  
  
• Family & Society Studies Worldwide. A primary family studies and gender studies resource, Family & Society Studies Worldwide covers such subjects as anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, health sciences, education, economics, law, history, and social work. It provides citations and abstracts to professional journals, books, book chapters, conference papers, theses & dissertations, websites & internet documents, selected popular literature, government reports, statistical documents, working papers, and unpublished material. Dates of coverage are 1970 to the present.
  
  
• GLBT Life
  This is the most inclusive on-line index to literature that pertains to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. It covers more than 80 GLBT-specific core periodicals, over 70 priority periodicals, and over 5,000 selected monograph, newsletter, case study, and dissertation titles. Among some of the journals that are indexed by GLBT Life are The Advocate, Lesbian News, Washington Blade, Bay Area Reporter, and historically significant titles such as ONE, The Ladder, Mattachine Review, Christopher Street and Body Politic.

  (Note: though the amount of items in LGBT Life that are full-text is growing, most records in this database as yet do not have links to full-text records. If you plan to conduct research in this database, be sure to allow time to receive the items through interlibrary loan.)

• Lexis-Nexis Academic is a full-text database that offers a wide range of news, political, legal, business, and reference information in full-text format. Primary source of newspaper articles, including those from the Washington Post and the New York Times, and thus useful for researching l/g/b/t issues in the news. Similarly has full-text access to newspapers from U.S. colleges and universities; these sources will be useful to persons researching l/g/b/t issues on college campuses (Note: to search these university sources, conduct a "Guided News Search" and select "University New" and "University Wire" from the respective menus on the screen). Finally, this database is a primary source of legal information, and useful for those persons researching the legal aspects of l/g/b/t topics.
  
  
• MasterFile Primier Multidisiplinary databaseProvides abstracts and indexing for 2,650 general periodicals, including popular magazines. Full text of articles for nearly 2,000 periodicals.
  
  
• PsycInfo is the most comprehensive index in psychology and related fields. It provides citations and abstracts to journal articles, book chapters and books, technical reports, and dissertations. Use this tool for looking at psychological and emotional factors underlying l/g/b/t topics.
  
  
• Social Science Citation index (Note: After selecting the Index, then select "ISI Web of Science" from the pull-down menu at the top of the page.)
  Indexes more than 17,000 journals in the social sciences. Serves as a unique tool because it provides cited reference searching, allowing the user to identify researchers who have referenced a given article since its publication.
  
  
• SocIndex This sociology index features more than 1,300,000 records from approximately 3,000 journals. Also indexes books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources.
  
  
• Women's Studies International. Compiled from ten women's studies databases, this is primarily an index of the feminist press from 1972 to the present. Though a source of much data on lesbian issues, this database cites many articles on general gay issues.
  
  

If you are conducting extensive in-depth research, most likely no one database will meet all of your research needs. It is always a good idea to consult a number of databases--at least one general one plus several subject-specific indexes.

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Other Tools

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