Last revised: November 11, 2009

ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES 498E

Scope: This tutorial is intended to support the assignments in AAST498E, "Asian American Sexualities."

Table of Contents

• Using Web Sources
• Basic Techniques for Searching the Catalog & the Databases (Using Boolean Logic)
• Catalog
• Research Port Databases
• How to Use Research Port
• 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 a primary route for scholarly research ( Note: This caution does not apply to Google SCHOLAR, which will lead the user to a small quantity of "scholary" articles). Here are some issues to consider when browsing the Internet for your 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 huge sums 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 In other instances, the information may be very out-of-date.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 using a search engine, such as Google. It is important that when you find a Website in this manner that evaluate it very carefully. The Libraries have created a guide to Evaluating Web Sites to help students do just that.

  Academic institutions and professional organizations often create Internet directories or gateways to lead you to reliable Websites. Here is an example of an Asian American gateway to Internet sites: Yale University. (Asian American) Research Resources.
  
  

return to top

Basic Techniques for Searching 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 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: intermarriage 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, another way to expand your search or to conduct a more thorough search is as follows: 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 phrases "intercountry marriage," "interethnic marriage," "interracial 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."
  

return to top

• Searching for Books:

  The Libraries' Catalog is the primary place to look for books and documents on your topic. Start with a "word/s anywhere" search.
  
  Example: "Asian Americans" and families
  
  (Note: One of the Catalog's limitations is that does not recognize phrases unless you put the phrase in quotation marks. So, be sure to enclose phrases 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 Media:

  Also you may wish to find materials in other formats, such as videos and sound recordings. When you search the Catalog, it will show all not only the books that the Libraries have on your topic, but will also show materials in other formats. If you want to search the Catalog for a particular type of media, you may do so by first selecting the "advanced search" option. When you are at the advanced search screen open the menu in the "format" box and select the format that you want. Then continue with your search.

• Searching for Journals:

  Important: the Catalog is not where you should go to search for journal articles. If you conduct a "journals" search in the Catalog it will tell you the names (i.e. the "titles") of journals that the Libraries own, but the Catalog will not search the journals to find actual articles. To find journal articles, you should use the Research Port databases (see Research Port Databases in the following section).

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

return to top

By going to the Libraries' Research Port page, you can get access to the more than 300 bibliographic databases to which the UMCP Libraries subscribe. Most of 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.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Though the Libraries' Research Port is loaded onto the Internet, journal articles found through Research Port should NOT be considered "Internet sources." Research port contains citations or full-text copies of PUBLISHED materials, often with a print counterpart. These are very different from webpages of uppublished data that one finds by browsing the Internet with Google or another general web brower.

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

• Ethnic Newswatch. Most of you will probably find this database to be useful for your assignment. This is a full-text database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press (primarily newspapers and news magazines, and also a few scholarly journals).
  
  
• 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.
  

USEFUL TIP: Both Ethnic Newswatch and GenderWatch are distributed by the same company. Thus you may search these databases simultaneously. To do so, go to either of these databases, click on the "databases selected link" to get a menu of all of the company's databases. Click on the boxes for 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. Note: You may also find it helpful to check the boxes by some of the newspaper databases and simultaneously search them too

Here is a list of some (but certainly not all) 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. (Note: This database contains may popular magazines in addition to peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. If you want only scholarly journals, be sure to check the appropriate box below the search template before you begin your search)
  
  
• Asia-Studies.com allows you to search thousands of full-text reports covering 53 countries on a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues. Note that this database focuses on Asian Studies, rather than Asian American Studies.
  
  
• Contemporary Womens Issues is comprised both of abstracts and of full-text copies from journal articles, newsletters, research reports, government and international agencies, and fact sheets from 1992 to the present.
  
  
• 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.



• 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. This database is a major source of newspaper articles.
  
  
• MasterFile Primier Multidisiplinary database that provides abstracts and indexing for 2,650 general periodicals, including popular magazines. Full text of articles for nearly 2,000 periodicals.
  
  
• Newspaper Databases from ProQuest:
  
  
  • Baltimore Sun 1990- Full-text Baltimore Sun Articles from 1990 to the present.
    
  • New York Times 1980- Full-text New York Times Articles from 1980 to the present.
    
  • New York Times Historical Full-text New York Times Articles from 1851 to 2001.
    
  • Washington Post 1987- Full-text Washington Post Articles from 1987 to the present.
    
  • Washington Post Historical Full-text Washington Post Articles from 1877 to 1988.
    
  .
• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• WorldCat. Unlike the other databases that search for journal articles, this database searches for books, and other materials in libraries worldwide. As a result, this is a good source for finding citations of books that the University of Maryland Libraries may not own. If you find books that in WorldCat that would be useful for your assignment, you may use Interlibrary Loan (described in the following section, "How to Use Research Port") libraries send it to you free of charge. These books generally will arrive in about two weeks, so be to plan ahead by starting work on your assignment early.
  
  

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.

return to top

How to Use Research Port

• You can reach the 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 directory name and password (the same name and password that you use to open your campus e-mail).

• 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 the desired title. Or you may look at lists of all of the databases assigned to a given topic (by selecting the "by subject category" link).

• For the purposes of this course, it is not recommended that you used the "journals" or "Quick Search" options.

• IMPORTANT TIP: 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).

  Interlibrary Loan: If the Libraries do not own a journal or book that you need, and it is not available full-text on-line, 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.

return to top

Other Tools