PS/LAST/GWST 227: Women and Latin American Politics

Key databases and catalogs are outlined on the Finding Books and Finding Articles pages of this guide.

Browsing for books on the shelf can be a very useful way to gather material on a topic. Seymour Library uses the Library of Congress call number classification system, and all materials on a topic are shelved together. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the course "Women and Latin American Politics," you may wish to browse the shelf in a range of subject areas depending on your specific topic.

NOTE: Only the major sections of each class are listed below. For additional subsections of each, including call number ranges for specific countries, see the Library of Congress Classification Outline.

History

D - DX World History & History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc. 

E - F History of the Americas

E 11-909 America / United States

F 1001-1145.2 British America (Including Canada)

1170 French America

1201-3799 Latin America. Spanish America.

Social Sciences

HN Social History & Conditions. Social Problems. Social Reform

HQ The Family. Marriage. Women.

HQ 1075-1075.5 Sex Role.

HQ 1088-1090.7 Men.

HQ 1101-2030.7 Women. Feminism.

Political Science

JA 1-92 Political Science (General)

JF 20-2112 Political Institutions & Public Administration

JK 1-9993 Political Institutions & Public Administration (United States)

JL 1-3899 Political Institutions & Public Administration (Canada, Latin America, Caribbean Area)

JN 1-9689 Political Institutions & Public Administration (Europe)

JQ 21-6651 Political Institutions & Public Administration (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.)

JS 39-8500 Local Government. Municipal Government

Whether you are using a database (principally for articles, but also for books, dissertations or conference proceedings) or the Knox Library and I-Share Catalogs, you can apply smart searching techniques in order to get the best search results.

Some things to try:

• Use as few terms as possible to describe your topic - don't search for long phrases or statements, but pick out keywords that describe your topic, remembering that you may need to try broader terms or synonyms
  

  Example topic: 
  Aging Out of Foster Care in Western Illinois (try this with or without age OR aging and with or without United States)

• If you are searching for books (not using a database), be sure to look for very general topics--your specific interest may appear in a chapter or section of a chapter, rather than as the subject of an entire book.
• Write down technical terms that you run across in reference sources and try using them as general or subject keywords in your searches. Especially in subject-specific databases, those are likely part of the controlled vocabulary, or predefined terms, that indexers and catalogers use.
• When presented with a list of results from a database, read the abstracts. This will help you figure out which articles to actually read based on subject or application of theory or methodology.
• Whether you are using databases or library catalogs, use subject terms. When you have found an article or book that looks pertinent, click on the subject terms to find other materials on the same subject.
• Follow the references! If you find an article that is pertinent, read through its reference list and try to locate other articles that relate (this is tracing the conversation thread). Even if only one paragraph in the introduction is pertinent, check out the specific references for that passage. You can also use Google Scholar, Web of Knowledge, and other resources to find out what other works cite the item you are looking at. For more about using Google Scholar, check this guide.

Tips:

• If you are searching for an exact phrase such as "Buenos Aires," put quotation marks around it
• Try searching for broad topics rather than narrow ones. You probably don't want to specifically search for work on Cachoeira or even Bahia, but think about what other geographic and thematic terms might describe what you are examining (this is the aboutness of your research). Terms such as rural, Northeast, Brazil, markets, economy, and gender (in combination) may point you toward the right conversations.
• Finding too many or too few sources? Try limiting with Boolean operators!

In addition to the tips above, there are some easy steps that you can do in order to become a super searcher in library catalogs, databases, and even in Google!

AND, OR, NOT (Boolean Operators)

What you don't need to know: George Boole was an 19th century mathematician and logician who came up with a system of logic (Boolean logic) that would later become the basis for computer operation. Because databases, library catalogues and search engines follow the rules of computer operation, you can use his operators to get more out of your searches. You can also forget that you ever heard of a guy named George Boole. 

What you need to know: Three key Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) are your best friends when searching. 

• • • AND - finds records with all of your search terms (works about Italian women)

• • • OR - finds records with one term or the other, or both terms (works that use the term Muslim or Islam)

• • • NOT - finds records that include the first term, but not the second (works that talk about Raúl Castro, but do not mention Fidel Castro).

That algebra comes in handy!

Remember FOIL and order of operations from algebra? The same thing works in searching. This means you can add parentheses in order to specify how your Boolean operators work. For instance, of you want works that mention Muslim or Islam but not terrorists, try:

(Muslim OR Islam) NOT terrorist

Cut it off!

But wait! You also don't want articles that talk about terrorist, terrorists, terrorism, etc. You could do this with parentheses and or (terrorist OR terrorists OR terrorism), but you can also truncate, or search for words that begin with a certain string of letters. In many databases, this symbol is * (as in terror*), but it varies from database to database, so be sure to check the search tips or help in your database.

Note: in databases such as Google, the * surrounded by spaces can also stand in for an entire words when putting phrases in quotes.

Get wild!

Many databases also allow you to introduce wildcard terms to your searches. Where this is allowed, you can replace a letter (wom?n would return results for woman, women, and womyn) or leave a space for alternative spellings (depending on the database, you might search encyclop#aedia or encyclop*dia).