Last revised: February 25, 2009

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER STUDIES 200

Scope: This tutorial is intended to support the assignments in LGBT 200, “Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studes,” taught by J. Sapinoso.

Table of Contents

• How to Conduct Scholarly Research
• Using Web Sources
• Basic Techniques for Searching the Catalog & the Research Port Databases (Using Boolean Logic)
• To Find Books on Your Topic, Use the Catalog:
  • How to Use the Catalog
• How to Find Journal Articles on Your Topic, Use the Research Port Databases:
  • Useful Research Port Databases
  • How to Use Research Port
  • Select Peer-reviewed Journals
• Other Tools

HOW TO CONDUCT SCHOLARLY RESEARCH

To conduct scholarly research, students must pick the best sources of information. In most cases these are scholarly books and journals. In some cases, popular materials such as magazines and newspapers may be used, especially for research that focuses current events. Also Internet Websites sometimes may be used, provided that the information is up-to-date and reliable (note: see Using Web Sources in the next part of this document).

The Catalog lists books and other materials that are actually owned by the University of Maryland Libraries. Search here to find books, videos, journals (the titles, not the actual articles), and other material that are part of the Libraries' collection.

Research Port is a gateway to databases and electronic journals to which the Libraries subscribe. Use these databases to search for journal articles (and often to other materials). This is explained in more detail below under How to Use Research Port."

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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, much 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 often 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.

• The lgbt world is well-connected in cyberspace, and there are many Internet gateways to useful data; here are some examples: .
  • The University of Chicago Library's "Starting Points on the Web" page of their "Gay and Lesbian Studies" guide.
    
    
  • The University of Colorado Library at Boulder has a "Subject Guide for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender." At the end of this guide one will find a lengthy list of Internet links.
    
    
  • Yale University Library lists Internet portals in the "Gateways, Guides & Portals" page of their "Gay and Lesbian Studies Research Guide."
    
    

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  Basic Techniques for Searching the Catalog & the Research Port Databases (Using Boolean Logic)

  When searching the Catalog or the Research Port 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:
    
    Describe the lives of children in same-sex families.
    Instead, you should identify key terms, the most important words in the search phrase
    
    Example: children; same-sex; families
    and use these terms with the Boolean connectors.
    
    Example: children AND same-sex 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. Thus if we wanted to narrow the previous search, we might input:

    

    
    
  • Other ways tp expand or narrow searches:
  • If a search yields too few results, you can enlarge the number of search results by adding additional related terms (e.g. synonyms or other forms of the word) and connecting them to the other terms/words with the word OR. Example:

    

    
    

  • If you have too many hits, another way to narrow your search is to search for a given term only if it is used in the title or is used as a subject. To explain further: 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.”
    

  

  
  
• 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 “child” followed by an asterisk, then the database will simultaneously search for the words “child,” “child's,” “children,” and “children's.” For example, in the previous search, by using an asterisk after the word "child," we would not have to write the phrase "child or children." Similarly, by adding some asterisks to the words "lesbian," "gay," and "homosexual," you would be searching simultaneously for the singular and plural of each word, and the search likely would be yield more citations.
  

  

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To Find Books on Your Topic, Use the Catalog:

• How to Use the Catalog

  Search the Libraries' Catalog for books and documents on your topic. Start with a "word/s anywhere" search.
  
  

  

  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 “breast cancer,” "domestic partners,” "gay marriage," etc. in quotation marks. If you do not, the search engine will search for each word separately. Also note that another limitation of the Catalog is that it will not search for any phrases that are longer than two words.

You can also use the Catalog to find out whether the Libraries subscribe to a particular journal, but 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.

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

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To Find Journal Articles on Your Topic, Use the Research Port Databases:

• Useful Research Port Databases

  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.

  Two databases that index lgbt oriented publications are:

  
  
  • 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.
    
  
  
  • LGBT 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 LGBT-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 LGBT 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.

  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. This is a useful tool for finding citations to articles about lesbian and gay families and about lesbian and gay parenting.
    
    
  • 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.
    
    
  • New York Times Historical (1851-2001)
    Searchable full-text database of digital images of every page back to the first issue of the newspaper. Useful if you need to find articles that were written near the time when an given event occurred.
    
    
  • 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.
    
    
  • Washington Post Historical (1877-1988)
    Searchable full-text database of digital images of every page back to the first issue of the newspaper. Useful if you need to find articles that were written near the time when an given event occurred.
    
    
  • 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.