Humanities Librarian
Recommended Databases
- Philosopher's IndexThe Philosopher's Index is a bibliographic database with informative, author-written abstracts covering scholarly research in all areas of philosophy. The literature covered goes back to 1940 and includes journal articles, books, book chapters such as contributions to an anthology, and book reviews. The Philosopher's Index monitors over 550 journals from more than 40 countries and is updated quarterly. Extensive indexing includes personal and proper names along with subject terms; there is also the capability to search for the authors of book reviews.
- ScienceDirectOffers access to most of the Elsevier Journal collection covering the sciences, business, child development, computer science, clinical research, economics, history, hospitality, industrial technology, library and information science, physical education and health, psychology, social work, sociology, and tourism. Find more detailed information.
- Web of ScienceThis collection of databases offers an integrated, versatile research platform, it delivers easy access to high quality, diversified scholarly information in anthropology, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, criminology, education, environmental sciences, geography, geology, marine sciences, mathematics and statistics, physics, psychology, social work, sociology, as well as search and analysis tools that enhance this content. Includes Web of Science Core Collection, which consists of multidisciplinary content covers over 12,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide. Find more detailed information.
Citation Searching
It is often useful to go through the endnotes or references of a paper to find sources the author has cited for information you might be able to use, which is a “backwards citation search." Many times the citations at the end of a paper will be linked so you can easily find them. If they are not, you can look up the journal title in the Library Catalog to find out if the library has access to the journal. Be sure to use the drop-down menu and select "Journal Title" for your search. Then you will need to look up the article by title in that journal.
A "forward" citation search can also be useful since academia is full of ongoing conversations between scholars. A “forward citation search” means finding other papers which cite a particular paper. One way to do a forward citation search is to enter a paper title and author into Google Scholar and look for the "Cited by" link under the brief paper abstract. You can also use the database Web of Science to find if a paper has been cited.