Get Research Help
Search.Libraries
You can access many books, ebooks, journal articles, and other sources at Oberlin. The resources below will help you to find everything we have at Oberlin and can access via other libraries in Ohio and worldwide.
Search at Oberlin and in OhioLINK
Using Search.Libraries, you can search everything available from Oberlin and from OhioLINK institutions across Ohio. Includes books and ebooks, journal articles, music scores, videos, audio, newspaper articles, and more.
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Search.Libraries This link opens in a new window
Find books, journal articles, scores, audio, video, and more from a single integrated starting point.
Search Libraries Worldwide
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Worldcat Discovery This link opens in a new window
Worldcat search interface that can be easily scoped to the Oberlin book collection. Particularly useful for users who prefer the Worldcat search interface for advanced music research or foreign language searching.
Article Databases
The library subscribes to hundreds of databases, some covering multiple disciplines and some designed for finding research in specific disciplines. Suggestions for databases to begin with are included below.
Multidisciplinary
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JSTOR This link opens in a new windowScholarly journal archive for the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences; current issues (usually the last 2-5 years) are not digitized by JSTOR and may be obtained elsewhere.
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Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary - good for nearly all subjects. Scholarly and trade journals, popular magazines, newspapers, conference proceedings, book reviews, and more.
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Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Scholarly literature in the sciences, health and medicine, social sciences, arts, and humanities and proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions. Includes cited reference searching across many databases. Search all databases in Web of Science (includes Medline and BIOSIS, direct link for on-campus users). Dates of coverage: 1965 to present.
History
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America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Index to research on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Indexes articles and book reviews from more than 1,700 journals published in more than 40 languages. Dates of Coverage: 1964 to date
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Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Index to thousands of academic journals covering world history (excluding the US and Canada) from 1450 to present, in over 40 languages, with full-text available. Dates of Coverage: 1955 to date
Social Sciences and Sciences
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Gender Studies Database This link opens in a new window
Covers the full spectrum of sexual diversity issues and gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Source documents include professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses and dissertations, and more. Dates of Coverage: 1972 to date
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LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
Includes the full text of more than one hundred current or historically significant Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) journals, magazines and regional newspapers, and books.
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PubMed This link opens in a new windowPublic access to MEDLINE, the most comprehensive index for biomedical literature, plus 40+ specialized databases for biochemistry, proteins, genomics, nucleotides, the National Library of Medicine catalog, and more.
All About Scholarly Articles
Both scholarly and peer-reviewed articles are written by experts in academic or professional fields.
Scholarly articles are published in journals for specific academic disciplines. Many scholarly journals are also peer-reviewed.
Peer-reviewed articles been submitted to reviewers who are experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
Both scholarly and peer-reviewed articles are excellent places to find what has been studied or researched on a topic, as well as find references to additional relevant sources of information.
Articles
Articles are works of writing published in serial or periodical publications; this includes scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, but also trade publications, newsletters, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and more!
Scholarly Articles
Scholarly articles are written by experts in academic or professional fields, and are published in journals for specific academic disciplines.
Peer-reviewed Articles
Peer-reviewed articles are scholarly articles that have been reviewed and vetted by experts in the field. Because these reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
1. Read The Abstract
The abstract will give you a general understanding of the article. Also, pay attention to the authors and their titles.
2. Read The Conclusion
The conclusion will summarize the author's findings including ways of improving the research.
3. Read The Introduction
The introduction will set up the layout of the article and the main argument of the article.
Tip #1: Highlight important ideas.
4. Read The First And Last Sentence Of Each Paragraph
The first and last sentence of each paragraph will give you a brief understanding of the discussion.
Tip #2: Take notes on the margins.
5. Read The Rest Of The Article
After getting a general idea of the article, read the entire article to get a full picture of the author's argument.
Tip #3: Repeat steps one and two.
Original
An article that reports on original research such as an experiment, or analysis of data, a creative work, phenomena, or historical event.
Review
An article summarizing the results of many original articles investigating similar topics. May use analytic techniques such as meta-analysis to statistically compare data from multiple studies.
Tip #1 - Many scholarly journals, especially in the Humanities, also publish book reviews of scholarly books. These are not the same as review articles!
Theory
An article intended to contribute to the theoretical foundations of a field, providing explanations for phenomena and frameworks that can be used to guide the analysis of evidence.