An academic journal in cultural studies is an ongoing theorization of something. For example, @ECFjournal doesn't tell you what "eighteenth-century fiction" is; it asks what it is, over and over and over.
— 祖思薪🔥🐍 Eugenia Zuroski (@zugenia) March 8, 2022
Scholarship, particularly in the study of literatures in English, is an ongoing, iterative process. A scholar makes a claim, asks a question, raises a new issue, and gives readers the perspective to read familiar texts with fresh eyes.
When we search library databases for scholarly articles, it's tempting to see each article as a discreet unit, or to see each article as related primarily to the other articles that turn up in our search results. That's because we're seeing these articles in the context of our search results, mediated through the interface of a library database, rather than in the context of their original publication -- that is, in a volume of a specific journal, surrounded by other articles that are probably not focused on the same central text, but that participate in theorizing a field in an ongoing way.
As you read the articles you find, it's helpful to consider:
When we see journal articles as contributions to, well, journals, which are published in multiple volumes across many years, we stop seeing articles as discreet entities, and start seeing them as part of a greater whole -- a whole to which we are also contributing.
The MLA International Bibliography is a great place to start research for a literature paper because it's designed to make scholarly research in the study of literature easy and efficient. It indexes articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals that focus on the study of literature. That means that you are more likely to find the most relevant sources for your topic, and less likely to get a bunch of irrelevant noise to sort through.
I like MLA because:
When I say it is thorough, I mean that it can alert you to the existence of a large number of potentially relevant articles because it is an index rather than a full-text database (like JSTOR). You'll notice that often when you try to click through to the article itself, you'll be sent to a different database, like JSTOR or Project Muse. This is because MLA has a record of the existence of the article in another database, but MLA doesn't actually have the full text itself. This influences how we use MLA most effectively. Once you understand that the MLA search tool only looks for matches in the titles, abstracts, and subject headings -- not the full text -- it's easy to see how familiarizing yourself with the conventions of an item description can make you a more effective researcher. (This also means that piling on key terms or searching for a highly specific minor element is unlikely to yield results.)
When I say MLA is specific, I mean that it is limited to articles and journals devoted to the study of literature. This is great when you're studying, say, Jane Austen, and you don't want to sift through the noise of plot summaries, TV adaptations, and fanfic. But it's also helpful to be aware of the limitations that come with this specificity: if you want to find scholarship in another discipline to illuminate your reading of Austen, you'll most likely want to consult another database as well.
As you know, MLA allows you to search by work or author. When you're writing a paper on a well-known author like Nella Larsen, that's the best way to get started. But if you find that you're pulling up an unmanageable number of search results, you can try narrowing your search by piling on additional search terms. Some recommended keyword searches include:
When you're looking at the list of search results, you'll notice that the page has two columns: a left-hand menu with facets to limit the search results, and the results themselves to the right.
The item descriptions in the results list typically include the following elements:
All of these elements are selected to make it easier for you to determine -- without even reading the article! -- if it is:
You can also use the limiters in the left-hand menu to narrow your search results. I recommend narrowing by publication date.
JSTOR is a multidisciplinary database that specializes in academic articles in the humanities and social sciences. That means it's not quite as specialized as the MLA International Bibliography, but it's still more focused than, say, Google.
JSTOR differs from the MLA International Bibliography in that it is a full-text database. This means that the search results JSTOR shows you will be limited to materials that are included in full in the JSTOR database, so it's not quite as thorough as MLA. This also means that JSTOR searches the entire text, and not just the item description, for your search terms. When you're searching on a well-known author like Jane Austen, searching a full-text database might not be a great place to start, because you'll get a lot of search results that just mention Austen in passing. However, if you're searching for something highly specific (a single poem that tends to be discussed in broader analyses of an author's poetry in general would be a good example), or looking for information on a little-studied author or work, JSTOR is a great tool to identify articles with relevant passages.
JSTOR also includes a lot of front-matter and back-matter and reviews (and some original poetry) that can be a pain to sort through. I therefore recommend starting with an "Advanced Search," and limiting the "Item Type" to Articles and Books. You might also limit the results to English-language.
As in the MLA International Bibliography, search results in JSTOR are displayed in a two-column format, with limiters in the left-hand menu and item descriptions for the search results to the right.
You can use the left-hand menu to add another keyword to your search, or narrow by publication type, publication date, or academic subject.
Each item in the search results typically includes the following elements:
You'll need to click on the article title to see the abstract, if one is available.
Expanding your search beyond databases focused on research in literary studies can help you identify previously unexplored connections. Each of the databases below provides access to scholarship in other academic fields. You might also try browsing the A-Z list of databases by Subject to see what's available.
This database is the world's largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Collection of scholarly journals and e-books, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch
The paper you write for this class will join the academic cacophony known as scholarly conversation. You will draw on, challenge, and develop the scholarship that came before in order to build your own argument, and later scholars will (we hope!) draw on your work to continue building our collective knowledge. How great is that?!?!
In order to effectively position your work in relation to existing scholarship, you'll need to identify what scholarly conversations are currently unfolding around you. And the best way to do that is to look at who's citing whom.
Backward chaining means looking at an article's works cited or list of references to identify sources. This is particularly effective when you've found a relatively recent publication and you are interested in identifying foundational texts in the field. Be on the lookout for repeat citations -- if you notice that every article you look at cites a particular source, you know that you need to read that source too if you want to join the conversation. Can you identify the different scholarly conversations that Zachary Killebrew brings together in this excerpt from his Works Cited list?
Forward chaining means looking for scholarship that cites a given source. While backward chaining moves us backward in the conversation, forward chaining moves us, well, forward. This is particularly effective when you've identified a source that might be a little dated, and you want to know how scholarship has developed since it was published. Some library databases have tools that facilitate forward chaining; I typically use Google Scholar.
