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Brief Guide to Research in East Asian Studies

Finding Articles

Journal articles are essential sources for current information on very focused topics. You can find articles in scholarly journals, trade journals, newspapers, and popular magazines. However, very often you will be expected to use articles from scholarly journals (also known as peer-reviewed or refereed journals) for research papers because they must be reviewed by subject experts before they are published. Thus, articles presented in scholarly journals are more authoritative than those in other types of publications.

Below are some examples of databases that index articles in scholarly journals:

Core Databases

 

Relevant Interdisciplinary Databases

Search Tips

 

  1. Identify key concepts in your research question and put them in separate search boxes.
  2. Put phrases in quotation marks. For example: "cultural revolution"
  3. Use truncation symbol * at the root of a word to find variations of the search term. For example, if you type connect*, the database will look for connect, connects, connected, connecting, connection, connectivity.
  4. When you find too many records, search one or more key concept in the field of Title, Subject term, or Abstract.
  5. When you find too few records, try to use synonyms of your key concepts in your searches. If you still can not find sufficient records, broaden up your research topic.