LibGuides: AFRS 3998: Africana Studies Senior Seminar: Articles

Strategies for Finding Articles

From a Citation

If you are trying to locate a specific article starting from a citation (ideally, one with the article's title, author(s), place of publication and date of publication), there are a few different ways you might go about your search:

Use CLIO Articles Search to search for the article by title. If the library's subscriptions give access to the article in full text, you should see a link that will lead you to the article.
If the CLIO Articles Search does not lead you to the article, try the CLIO Catalog Search to search for the library's holdings of the periodical in which the article is published. This search will show you both print and digital holdings of journals, magazines, and other serials in which articles are published.
If neither of the above searches leads you to the article you are looking for, try requesting a digital scan of the article using Interlibrary Loan. Make sure that you indicate the title, author, and inclusive page numbers you'll need (Note: You can also request book chapter scans using ILL).

From a Topic/ Question/ Keywords

If you are looking for articles in conversation with a specific topic:

Try CLIO Articles for a really broad/ general search.
Use a database (see below for many relevant examples) to hone in your search within a specific body of literature and/or specific area of publishing.

Finding Articles in Databases

Africa-Wide Information
features citations and abstracts to books and journal articles in African Studies, including content from the sources South African Studies, African Studies, and African HealthLine.
African E-Journals Project
Contains digitized, full-text articles from the following journals: Africa media review, African journal of political economy, African journal of political science, Critical arts, Glendora books supplement, Glendora review, Institute of African Studies research review, Journal of social development in Africa, Pula, Transformation, Utafiti and Zambezia
America: History and Life with Full Text
Index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes journals from 1964 to present and includes citations and links to book and media reviews.
Black Studies Center
combines several research resources in Black Studies, including the International Index to Black Periodicals (coverage up to 2006), Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, The HistoryMakers Videos and full transcripts for interviews with 100 contemporary African Americans, historical black newspapers, Black Abolitionist Papers, and the Black Literature Index.
Ethnic NewsWatch
Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by the ethnic, minority and native press in the U.S. Coverage is from 1960 to date.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. It is also very useful for seeing if other scholars have cited a book, article, etc. Search on the title, and then follow the "Cited by ..." link.
HeinOnline
Hein Online contains the full text of numerous legal journals, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Foreign Relations of the U.S., Presidential Executive Orders, Congressional Record, U.S. Statutes at Large, and other documents from the executive, congressional and judicial branches of the U.S. government.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, and history of education. Provides selective indexing of historical articles from more than 1,800 journals in over 40 languages back to 1955 as well as the full text of more than 300 journals and over 130 books.
Independent Voices
A four-year project to digitize over 1 million pages from the magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative press archives of participating libraries. Starting with collections by feminists and the GI press, the collection will grow to include small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, the minority press (Latino, Black and Native American) and the extreme right-wing press.
JSTOR
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. You can browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts (for instance, try limiting a search to journals in African American Studies). New issues of existing titles and new titles are added on an ongoing basis.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.
Project Muse
Full-text versions of peer-reviewed journals from many of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies, as well as thousands of ebooks, with emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
ProQuest
This resource includes citations and full text articles in academic & professional disciplines, e.g., business, economics, gender studies, health, literature, management, political science; as well as news and general interest items. Search multiple databases simultaneously or select individually from among ABI/INFORM (business); Accounting & tax; the American Medical Association; Dissertations; Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, Research Library, or major current and historical US newspapers (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, etc).